It CAN'T Be JUST Me...I Hope

My niece Traci says it's true...her mother Trish backs up that claim...but I still find it hard to believe. I guess when I consider the facts, it could have happened the way they said it did. I'm just thankful Traci managed to live through the trauma and grow up to be reasonably well-adjusted, though perhaps the amount of physical distance between us was a necessary buffer. She certainly seems normal now when I "talk" with her on Facebook or see her at the odd family wedding (not that our family is odd, mind you, I meant...oh well...). It's gotten to be something of a weight on my shoulders, but constant reminders bring back the memory and I'm dealing with it over and over.
On a related note, a restaurant is Green Bay has changed owners, or at least names. That's a good thing because now I can go to eat there. See, I couldn't before because the restaurant's name was "Xcetera," and I cannot tolerate a public display of poor spelling/grammar. For example, I will NOT under ANY circumstances drink Mello Yello or wear LUVS diapers (though I may not know the difference by the time I have some nurse's aid dressing me!). Likewise, I refuse "Lite" beer of ANY kind, and ChexMix will NOT be found on the shelf at my domicile. You get the picture. Not always so pernickety, I even managed a chuckle when Travis, a student of mine, asked me to proofread an essay he had written on gangs for his writing professor: he began with "Every city in America knows the treat of gangs." Since I type poorly, I let him slide...or Hannah who was making a cover for her portfolio for a class using my office printer, and it came out "PROTFOLIO" in 48 font. The large font got a guffaw...but Hannah is a 4.0 student so she can take it. Anyway...
Because it was a Mother's Day kind of deal, our daughter sprang for dinner Friday night at a pub/restaurant near the university. The owner is a booster of sorts so I was OK with it...until the menu arrived. Smack dab (colloquialisms are acceptable because they are usually spelled correctly) in the middle of the specials was the following sentence: "Free popcorn served at the bar accept on Wednesdays."
I was in the parking lot and reaching for the car door handle when my sweetie caught up with me and conned me into returning for dinner by threatening, well, you know. Plus, I guess I didn't really want to spoil her day...and it WAS a free meal ( though it does NOT count for Father's Day...I was willing to buy my own).
Grudgingly, I bit my tongue (nearly in half) whenever the waitress came by and said in a simpy voice, "Is everything all right here? Do you need anything else?"
Of course, I wanted to point out the egregious error but I managed to hold it in...having gotten several well-placed kicks under the table...which, by the way, is NO way to act on Mother's Day Friday Evening.
Having avoided catastrophe there, imagine my difficulties when, today at a church service, the minister posed a question about mothers, added a "but" then asked us to finish the sentence. "I love my mother, but..." He proceeded to give us several alternatives, the first half of which were negative responses ("I love my mother, but she sometimnes drives me crazy"). However, when he got to possible responses which were positive, EVERY SINGLE ONE OF THEM should have used the conjunction "and" NOT "but"!!!!! (I think I just broke the exclamation point key). He did this not once but five times, and I was halfway out of the pew by the third one, with my sweetie grabbing my shirt and all the little kids around beginning to jump up and down, too (much to the chagrin of their parents who fastened the old "evil eye" on me...and in church, too!
What is wrong with the world? Is it texting or email or that damn Twitter crap? Has the world become totally insensitive to language????(oh great, now I've broken the question mark key)
I need an intervention... seriously (deep breaths, count to a hundred...)I'm going to call Traci and ask for her forgiveness again...