December 11: The All-Caps Genius

I used to work with a girl that very well could have been off her rocker. She used to have a remedy for every common illness and often told stories of performing acupuncture on herself when she was feeling congested. She claimed to know about herbs and spices known only in Chinese mythology and spoke of various types of yoga she had attended on a regular basis. My favorite theory of hers, though, was that she thought I was a genius.

The funny thing is that she didn't form her opinion from talking to me or having my palms read. She didn't have me take any aptitude tests or hook me up to any machines. Instead, she saw the chart that all the servers are supposed to fill out at the end of each shift and noticed that I wrote my name in all capital letters. Apparently, only geniuses write in all caps.

I actually grew up writing cursive. For some reason, I really liked the curvy ways the letters all connected, and after learning it in the third grade, I just kept with it. Back then, we had to write essays by hand and I did all of mine in cursive when other students went back to printing. My mom always wrote in cursive and I used to imitated her capital M's with the same little loop on the left of mine.

My dad always wrote in all caps. I liked the way it looked, but I couldn't understand how anyone could use the form when writing because it always took me so much longer. When I went off to college and I started filling out job applications and other various forms, I started using all caps because I thought it was more legible than my cursive and, for some reason, a bit more professional. Of course, all of my essays were being done on the computer, so I didn't really have any reason to use cursive anymore, but I still used it when writing thank you notes and other lengthy letters.

The only time I ever really use all capital letters is when I'm filling out the chart in the office at work. I love that this insane girl thought I was a genius, but when I looked over the chart myself and saw the other all-caps users I worked with, the girl's credibility took a bit of a nosedive. I could only pray that there were other factors that kept me from being in the same category as these other jerks. But, hey! It still felt kind of cool to be labeled a genius; even by an insane person.