Confessions of a Creative Punctuator

Considering most of our friends and family don’t tweet, I
decided against mailing a #hashtag Christmas letter.

And yet I face another
challenge: Written communications, electronic or print, pose a great challenge
to the highly expressive and animated communicator!

I was recently pounding out an email when my husband, Kurt, chided me for my overuse (and abuse) of certain punctuation marks…as well as
“faux” punctuation : )

On behalf of all animated communicators, I defended the
practice.

He proceeded to make his point by reading my drafted email…out loud.

With all the intended expression of the exclamation point
(!) he shouted the words preceding it.

He paused dramatically at every ellipsis as if to say, “wait
for it…”

He threw his hands and fingers in the air for an over
exaggerated demonstration of the “air quotes.”

And finally, every time I had used a : ) (which is not
technically punctuation even though I think it should be), he forced his face into an
animated contortion.  His eyebrows arched
so high they almost disappeared into his former hair line. Bearing all his
pearly whites, he stretched an agonizing smile across his face–resembling a
spasm more than a smile.

And when a “man of few words” puts on a show like that…well…suffice it to say, he made his point. : ) 

I can’t apologize for my “digital abuse” of certain
punctuation! I can only offer my sincere regret that I did not get his “punctuation demonstration” on video.

It may have
gone viral…at least among our friends : )