So Say We All

Susan M., a high school teacher, sent in one of her favorite grammar errors:

A ninth grader once wrote this sentence: Juliet's last wish was to get laid in a beautiful tomb.

Ours too. Ours too.

But What Did He Lay?

So it's come to this. When teenagers listen to their parents, it's considered news, just as "MAN BITES DOG" will generate headlines. Still, this story leaves us with more questions than answers.

Mich. teen escapes injury after listening to dad
THE ASSOCIATED PRESS

BANGOR TOWNSHIP, Mich. -- A father's decision to tell his 17-year-old son to get off the floor and lay down on a couch may have saved the boy from injury when a suspected drunken driver crashed into their Michigan home. Roy Rabadue told The Saginaw News and WJRT-TV he was watching television Monday night in their home in Bay County's Bangor Township, about 90 miles northwest of Detroit, when he decided to make cookies.

He told Joseph to move, and his son complied. Shortly afterward, a pickup smashed into the home. The crash tossed their 52-inch television across the living room, landing where Joseph had been on the floor.

The couch overturned along with a chair where Rabadue's 12-year-old son, Jacob, was sitting. Both escaped injury.

WNEM-TV reported the driver was arrested.

What puzzles us, though, is the information that's been left out. The father was baking cookies. He told his son to "lay" on the couch, so clearly he needed eggs. Did the son actually produce? Now that would be news worth reading.

The Bay Area: Where Literate Birds Roost

You hear a lot about New York's "Pale Male," the bird who chose to roost in high-priced Manhattan real estate, crapping all over the wealthy residents as they stepped out onto the sidewalk.

You hear less about the literate birds of San Francisco, who have been instructed not to lay on the foundations near this sign. That's good advice. The eggs would just roll off, and perhaps splat on people as they passed.

Wait... what's that? This isn't for the birds, after all? You mean people were trying to lie on the foundations? Goodness, that sounds uncomfortable.

Thanks, Barry L., for the photo.