I Sorta Kinda Wanted to Write This (Guest: Alan Cook)

I don’t text or tweet but I can see how using abbreviations and shortcuts while texting or tweeting can be helpful. I usually write complete sentences in emails, but if others don’t want to that’s fine. But as the son of an English teacher, I’d like to complain about the state of oral conversation, from newscasters on down to college graduates.

This situation with the way we speak English these days has been kind of nagging at me and I sort of wanted to write a little bit about it, but I’ve been, you know, kind of busy, and like, I haven’t been able to find the time.

The other day I did something for a man and he said “Thank you” and I said “No problem” and he said “Whatever happened to ‘You’re welcome?’” and I said “No problem,” because I didn’t know what else to say.

I’m pretty good at doing good deeds for people. A woman at the market was, you know, having trouble with a grocery cart and I said, “Can I help you?” and she said, “I don’t know, can you?” so I slapped her since she was being kind of a wiseacre.

The sun was warm and it was a pretty amazing day out so my wife and I went to the museum and we saw the most unique exhibit I’ve ever seen. It was, you know, one of those dinosaurs who was like, kind of big, like a T-Rex, and he was eating this other guy who was laying on the ground. I’m not lying when I say that. But I can tell you that if I met a T-Rex in real life I’d be a little bit scared because he was sort of awesome.

So that’s the, you know, reason I haven’t been working on this English project, because I’ve been, like, kind of busy, but I expect to do it soon, and when you read it you’ll say, “Wow, this Cook writes pretty unique stuff. He is amazing.”

Alan Cook began writing books after he abandoned the computer industry (or it abandoned him). He is the author of eight mystery novels. He has won two Silver Quill awards from the American Authors Association and two best geographical location awards from Reader Views. His latest mystery, Forget to Remember, features a young woman with amnesia. She is declared to be a non-person by the government and someone may be trying to kill her. Alan lives with his wife on a hill in Southern California. His website is http://alancook.50megs.com

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Carol Golden isn’t her real name. She doesn’t remember her real name or anything that happened before she was found in a Dumpster, naked and unconscious, on the beautiful Palos Verdes Peninsula in Southern California.