HOOKED ON *FONICS*

GRRR. That's how the morning got started.  A big GRRR... with a side of humility pie that tasted (I would imagine) like dirty diapers.

Let me explain.

During the past few days, the whole newsroom has received many an email about ATTENTION TO DETAIL. (It's sweeps, the consultants are coming, and we're launching a new newscast.  So it's basically the perfect storm of management hysteria/Hell.) The emails all went a little something like this (paraphrasing here):

Hey you people in the cubicles,
Get your act together.  Management has noticed a bunch of moron errors during the newscasts the last few days.  And FOR THE LOVE OF GOD, PUHHHLEASE DOUBLE CHECK YOUR SPELLING!!!

*I* glazed over the emails, because CLEARLY, those emails were directed at the lowly, mistake-prone people who should really learn from their mistakes. CLEARLY, the emails were not meant for moi. I mean, I don't make mistakes. I always spell correctly.  I am PERFECT.

That sets the scene for last night's newscast... we got a few of those emails, and now the consultants are in town, ready to go gangbusters crazy critical on the newscast, what we wear, eat, drink and how we shape our mouth when we talk. (I don't know either). Oh.  AND. To add to the drama, I was finally given the go ahead to air a story that I'd been pitching for weeks. 

So it's time to *shine*.  I was live in the newscast, saw the story and was beaming with pride (which apparently, can act like a bad case of glaucoma, preventing you from seeing the mistake that your boss will later point out).

Back to this morning.

The source of the GRRR and the dirty diaper taste in my mouth? An email.  Just one line from the boss that read something like: HEY LOSER! DID YOU NOTICE YOU CAN'T SPELL WORTH #%*@?

(Ok, the boss is actually nicer than that, and simply pointed out the word I spelled incorrectly on a graphic during my story. But I'm sure expletives and a HEY LOSER were on the tip of the tongue.)

Yes.  In all of my genius, I managed to pick the one night when, if you had asked me, of all 365 nights in the year, during which one would I prefer NOT to make a mistake, I would have picked last night.

I know I didn't save the world, or feed all the hungry children in Africa before last night's newscast.  But, bottom line, none of that would have mattered.  Because the last thing I did in on air, which is all that matters, was show how I was in fact HOOKED ON *FONICS*.