Homophones, or Today's High Schooler

After only two years of teaching high school English, I've already come across many funny, while also troubling, pollutions of our language. Here are some of the best. I have included my comments that I made on these papers.

7. "I imagine this song at Frankenstein and Elizabeth's wedding, when they say their vowels." -- Would this wedding march be E-I-E-I-O?
6. Basketball quart -- Is this like miniature golf?
5. We were so relieved when mourning came -- You liked your aunt that much?
4. My mom gave birth to an 85 pound baby boy -- Send your mom my concerns, and
a decimal point.
3. (Title) "My Mane Name" -- Teaching proofreading is like beating a dead horse.
2. Odysseus is the Hero of the Trojan Whore -- And you spelled Odysseus correctly?
1. After tests, the doctor told me I was amoebac -- It must be tough going to
high school with only one cell.

Worm Composting, or Vermicomposting

Two friends, L and R, introduced the idea of city composting to me. Now this brought back smelly memories of when I was a child and I stumbled upon my grandparent's compost pile behind the storage shed. But, if it's good for the environment, why the hell not? What's been interesting as I've looked into this is there is an entire culture devoted to worm harmony out there. Some highlights:
1) Harvest your worm compost with your hands, never a shovel, to keep your critters intact.
2) Refrigerate food scraps, and keep them slightly damp, but not too damp, before putting the waste in the compost bin.
3) Worms prefer to eat cool, damp scraps. (Thus the tedious process explained above.)
4) Keep your bin indoors so the worms stay cool. (Never mind your sniffer.)
5) And yes, if you mess this up, worms have their own watch group in The Earth Worm Digest Organization.

Stooping

It's not new to me, or to anyone who's lived in Baltimore for awhile--people love to sit on their stoops. I agree that this is a great method for advancing camaraderie in city neighborhoods. It's also a great way to escape these narrow houses we live in that are a little more than glorified trailers; long and narrow. Recently I've had to adjust to stoop shares, you know, like time shares, except it's not some fabulous beach house in Belize. Just four steps on a Baltimore street that lead into my house. They're not even the fancy, cooling marble ones. They're brick; chipping brick. For some reason, my stoop is the one preferred over the 100 others on my street. Sometimes I get home around 3pm. Tired, cranky, ready to bite someone's head off since teenagers have been biting my head off all day. As I walk towards my house I see I'm going to have to make niceties with the 5-person family hanging out on my stoop. "How's it going ya'll?" I inquire genuinely. "Hey, great," "Beautiful day isn't it?" and I even get a, "How was your day?" from my visitors. It was the first time that day that someone asked me how I felt. "You know," I said, "I'm worn out actually." A chorus of concerns came from the family. I squeezed past them to get inside. Shortly thereafter I returned with an extra chair and a pitcher of lemonade. I began to talk about my day as the older woman, probably the grandmother, poured us drinks. If one good deed deserves another, then I've staked out the stoop I'm going to visit next week. I hope they're just as appreciative of my presence as I was of my stoop share family.