December 24, 2012
Quirky Shorthand Makes Life Difficult

The other day I found myself in a dilemma; I was at the grocery store, list in hand (which in itself was a miracle as usually I leave home without it, rendering myself completely senseless as to what to buy once I step inside the door of the store).  No, the problem was not in having forgotten the list but in reading one of the items that I had hastily jotted  on said list. 

I was able to make out "eggs", "flour", "oranges", etc.  So I gradually filled my little basket with my needed baking supplies.  Happily heading to the checkout counter to pay for my goods, aware that everything I had picked up fit nicely in one of those little green baskets, I noticed one more item on my list.  It had been written vertically alongside the other items. It stood there like a broken finger. 

Problem was, I couldn't make out what I had written a mere half hour ago while still at home. But surely this was something that I did not want to leave the store without purchasing.  I obviously needed it or I would not have scripted it on paper. 

"Sw-crud-ms" it looked like to me. "Southwest what?" I wondered.  What was I thinking? Why would I write "southwest" something on my grocery list.  And why can't I have penmanship like so many other people whom I admire.  

By the way, I received the only "unsatisfactory" grade in my entire elementary career as a third grade student in, you guessed it, penmanship. I have since improved somewhat but when in a hurry, it's anybody's guess what I have sprawled upon the paper. 

In desperation I asked Katie, who was cheerfully scanning my purchases at the cash register, if she could make out what I had scribbled on the paper.  She leaned forward, scrunched her forehead and twitched her nose a bit as she slowly sounded out the letters that she could make out.  

I was stunned and amazed when she finally said in drawn out syllables:  "sweeeeetened connnnnn-denssssssed milk!  You just have to sound out the letters, she said to me," with the confidence of a cell-phone texting young person.  

Yep, that's exactly what I'd written.  How could I have forgotten?  It'd been what, 30 minutes earlier at best when I'd compiled my list.   Well, that's another story for another time.  

What I really needed was evaporated milk to make my fudge, though, and I'd already added that to my shopping basket.  Nevertheless I was indeed glad to have had that mystery solved. 

I find that when I'm hasty, my handwriting suffers irreparable damage.  As a reporter, this can be a dangerous thing.  Many a night I have been at my desk, contemplating what I had scribbled a couple hours earlier at a meeting or interview that I had been at.  With deadline looming, I'm still crinkling my eyes in hopes of figuring out what that seemingly foreign word in front of me is.  

Sometimes I have a revelation, other times I just give up and move on.  I guess you could say this is yet one more gene I have inherited from good old Dad whose handwriting, while entirely unique and un-copyable, is at times indecipherable.