It started well. I had good intentions, really. A Power Point presentation (I make loads of them for online lessons), with the script in the notes. The “script” gets long at times because I’m working on a lengthy series of reading intervention lessons, and they’re heavily scripted. Rather than read the manual and handle the power point at the same time, transcribing the notes now saves time later.

So imagine this: I’m speeding along, typing a long batch of script, looking at the manual. I finish the paragraph, and turn to look at the slide to find — this.

mocprm/ Imocprms are ,usteropis amd ,agoca; amo,a;s tjat upi read abpit om faoru ta;es/ A imocprm ;ppls ;ole a jprse wotj pme jprm pm ots jead/ Sap;a ;ove om kimg;es amd are extre,e;u rare/ Tjeu arem T rea;;u imocprms. Bit tjeu are ca;;ed Asoam imocprms because tjeu are veru sju/ Frp, the sode. Tjeu ;ppl ;ole tjeu jave pme jprm/ {ep[;e dp

Yep. You guessed it, readers. One hand moved over a key. One hand. A few of the words may be right (are, a, rare), but not enough. If you try hard enough, you might be able to decode parts of the sample. Maybe.

And yes, I hit delete and typed it correctly — after resisting temptation to bang my head on the desk. So readers, what kind of time-wasting mistakes have you made lately? No, on second thought, you don’t have to reminisce and remember those moments. I have enough of my own.