Appalled

I am so embarrassed.

As a favor for a friend, I wrote an article--more like a personal essay--on infant sign language and our experience with it. I am a big fan of signing with babies, so I was happy to promote it, and as a bonus it was a potential clipping for my nonexistent freelance career. The pay was zero dollars, but I put a lot of work into the article.

I did not have the opportunity to review the piece before it went to press. The publication is a tiny "supplement" (eight pages) put out by the local Jewish community council. No web presence...barely a print presence. But still, I didn't deserve this:

I sent clean copy, free of spelling and grammatical mistakes. I do that. I'm an editor, or at least I was.

What was printed was appalling. Mistakes up the wazoo. Never mind that my sentences were hacked to pieces to fit whatever "newspaper" style the "editor" was imitating, but there were spelling mistakes. Lots of them. Good grief. In 2006, when the entire world has heard of Spellcheck, that's just not right.

Other than burning every (free) copy of this in existence, I don't know what to do. Do I tell the friend (who is on the Jewish community council) how upset I am? And that I will never write for them again? It's not like I have much of a reputation to protect, but anyone who knows me (other than solely in the context of Miss M's ema) knows that I used to be an editor. And that I was paid for it. I don't expect that this article will make it out of our ZIP code, but my name is still on it.

What do I dooooooooo?

I have to go vacuum up crushed Kix from my living room rug. The Shabbat Queen is coming.