"So you lock your kids' up during the day?" "Yep."

Now read that again without the apostrophe. Sounds exactly the same, right? So to someone who might have been standing nearby, inadvertently listening to our conversation, this interchange might come across as a bit, mmm, odd. But in the written form it suggests that there might be something else to it, all because of that cute little punctuation mark. I don't mean to sound nerdy here, but I think we need to take a moment to appreciate the power of punctuation. We've all heard of the somewhat-dramatic-yet-powerfully-accurate slogan, "Punctuation Saves Lives," haven't we? You know the one: "Let's eat grandma. Let's eat, grandma." I mean really, without those little marks we'd be constantly backtracking and explaining just what the heck we meant. But instead, thanks to them, we can freely write down our thoughts without a worry in the world that we might be misunderstood. (clearly I don't mean that at all since I'm constantly explaining myself in this blog). But anyway, you get the point. The gesture. The intention. So there we were, my friend and I, waiting for our kinders to come out after their first day of school today, just chatting about stuff, when we casually had this exchange. We were innocently talking about biking to school...buying another lock since three bikes on one lock was a bit of a stretch...etc. She actually pointed out the humor in it, since I, apparently, have become almost oblivious to the strangeness of parental interactions these days. So perhaps I owe her a thanks as well. Thank you, friend, for appreciating the power of punctuation and pointing out the preposterousness of our parlance.