Weekly, my new spellcheck company tells
me all kinds of wonderful things about
my writing in comparison to all the other

writing covered by that particular spell-
check company, but there is one category
in which I fail miserably — grammar. I

feel like I’m back in high school English.
I want to tell the spellcheck company
that I write poetry and that I have lots

of break lines and that commas and
semicolons and periods aren’t used in
the traditional ways and that I shouldn’t

be graded down for that but, in fact,
graded up for creativity; I want to
tell them that if I wrote essays they

would see what a great grammarian
I can be, getting every last jot and
tittle just right, but there is now-

here for me to lodge a protest and
defend my honor as a college English
major. The spellcheck company just

tells me that my issues are “advanced”
and that if I want to improve my writ-
ing skills, I will have to purchase the

“advanced” program so I will move
to the head of the class in competition
with all the other writers whose writing

is covered by the spellcheck company.
In fact, this piece has nine advanced
issues my spellcheck company informs me.