In the world of fast paced blazing broadband speeds, millions of uploads and downloads every day, how many zillion hits and followers you have and if you have managed to trend or go viral, typos have become a regular feature in our lives. 

Unintentionally or intentionally, typos are cool, typos are hot, typos are ludicrous, typos are acceptable, typos are unavoidable, typos are funny, some embarrassingly so and some typos are life changing (for the worse or for the better ;)). Typos are like that geeky, young cousin who you never wanted to hang out with and then he/she moved to Australia with his/her family and now is extremely cool. Because, come to think of it, typos are nothing but the spelling and grammatical mistakes that you used to be and still are hauled up for and got grades deducted for during all classes in school, college and at work. 

Before you go for the jugular, I accept typos are unavoidable most of the times coz all of us want to be fat. There, the first typo in this article. I meant to type ‘fast’. (All of us want to be fast). Well, good thing I spotted that. However, that’s the fun part of typos that they more often than not end up being funny. Sometimes embarrassingly so. And most times, at your expense, if you are a finger bruising, keyboard rupturing, ‘the apocalypse is approaching’ kind of a person (like I am) when you are texting someone or writing an article coz, why not?

This post is for us – all of us – to discuss typos and see the funny side of them. I am going to set the pace here by writing down some of the worst ones I have made. I will let you all decide how they sound. And you brave souls can then chime in on the comments or we can collaborate and write a new article altogether.

This post will get increasingly PG-13, however, I will kick it off with an innocent typo which even though sounds innocuous can have deep ramifications if used while replying to someone who is not a good friend. One of my colleagues once text me regarding a tough project and she asked me about one of the issues that I had discussed with her. She was on a difficult project too and we were working really long hours. The text she sent me was “how are you?” as she was trying to check on me. It was a friendly and kind gesture and I replied to her immediately and sent her a text which meant to say, “better, thank you” but in my hurry to send it I failed to realize that what I sent read “better, than you”. Needless to say, she stopped talking to me. Imagine your girlfriend asking you, “How are you, honey?” – And if, “Better, than you”! is your answer to that, then God save you coz you will need a lot of saving. Before you know it, you will have a really sweet person in your life called an ex-girlfriend 😛

Since we are discussing colleagues, I once replied to a hello from the partner on an engagement by typing “Hell Mark” instead of hello. It was during busy season and although tight deadlines are said to be inversely proportional to a great sense of humour, we had a good laugh, however it could have been messy had he not seen the funny side of it.

“Go ahead, achieve your dreams” turning into “go ahead, achieve your drama” to a friend who had a penchant for exaggerated emotional outbursts did not land me in her good books. That is a very subtle way of putting it.

This is a really funny one. I saw the Instagram story of a friend from college and she had put up a picture decked up as a bride. I wanted to congratulate her but was not sure if it was for one of her modelling assignments and so I text her asking, “So, did you get married?” and left it at that. She replied a couple of hours later (given the time zone difference with India) saying “Yes, I indeed did and you too will, more consistently, once you get married”. It took me a while to realize that my innocent query had turned to, “So, did you get naked?” AWKWARDDDD!!

“Tj, did you ask her to play for our team?” this is what my friend Amanda asked me one evening post our workout and she was referring to me trying to recruit someone for our co-ed soccer team. In order to tell her how sincerely I tried, I replied saying, “Yes, I fell at her feet and begged her”. Amanda replied after a pause saying, “I knew you had the hots for her but I did not want to know about any of your fetishes. Creepy, but, if that is what it takes for her to play for us”. Only then to my horror I realized that I had replied saying, “Yes, I felt her feet and begged her”. Pretty savage! Sounds like a 53rd shade of grey is in the makings ;D

Traveling, working full time, studying and working out takes a lot out of one’s life and I generally feel that I am playing catch up especially given that ‘time’ seems to be running faster than I am. So, when one weekend one of my friends told me that some our mutual friends want to hang out at our favourite bar downtown I was happy that I would finally get a break. The universe was definitely plotting against me as my reply “Glad you text me, haven’t had a drink in a long time” miraculously turned into “Glad you text me, haven’t had a dick in a long time”. You all know who was at the receiving end of most jokes that night. Ya! Keep laughing – I am not even going to acknowledge y’all anymore.

Can’t get worse? You think so? You really think so? Well, sample this.. Disclaimer: It isn’t a typo but you deserve a laugh after reading through this typo ridden article 😉

One of the few things that I have consistently liked doing after having moved to Houston is going to the Farmer’s Market on Richmond every Saturday morning. My friend John, his girlfriend Marissa and I generally end up spending a couple of hours there wandering amongst the stalls selling fresh produce, plants, bonsai trees, organic food, wine, orchids, fruits, pimento cheese etc. Last Saturday, we went there much earlier than we usually do and ended up in the queue to get savoury crepes for breakfast. Ham and cheese sounds great, huh? There were two other ladies in front of us and my favourite seller (she sells pecans) was right by us. John, Marissa and I were discussing Southern cuisine and I suddenly remembered that the night the Houston Astros won the world-series; John and I, on our way back to the apartment, had stopped to get some food from who John referred to as the ‘boudain-man’. Boudain is spicy, Cajun sausage from Louisiana. At that eureka moment, I knew I had my two cents to contribute to this conversation about food and blurted out, “I want to have Boudain”!!!! John turned to look at me and had a mortified look on his face. He then asked me to shut up and not say such things publically. Marissa thought I was being desperate and should calm down. The two ladies gave me weird stares and the pecan girl stopped coming to the Farmer’s Market from that weekend onwards. I kept looking clueless at my friends not knowing what I said caused such a stir and John hissed into my ear, “You idiot, you do not say such things in public and that loudly”. So, do y’all know what they heard? Apparently, I said, “I want to have booty”. I wish I had vanished into thin air at that moment but embarrassment never caused a heart attack and I survived through all of it to write this blog post.