I used to write magazine articles for a financial planning firm based in one of the northern states.  The CEO was a man who lived his life spiced with exclamation points.  He started his days spitting out exclamation points and speaking in capital letters. He’d arrive at the office and say, “HOT DAMN!  It’s colder than hell out there!”  Later, he’d stop at my desk, open his mouth wide, and exclaim, “I love the way you changed this article!  This is AMAZING!”  Before the day was over, he’d throw a stack of papers on my desk. “See if you can work your magic on this one! Don’t worry! I don’t need it until tomorrow!” I’d immediately spot a sentence screaming at me from the papers: HAVE YOU DIVERSIFIED YOUR STOCKS!!!!

See what I mean?  I always imagined his first cry at birth: “WAAAAA!”

My father was a period man.  He never cursed or yelled or screamed even under stress. When he was upset, he’d simply take a drag on a cigarette, blow the smoke out into the night like a nicotine spirit, and say something like, “Umm.” 

Yes, my father was a definitely a period man. When his father was dying of cancer, the two of us showed up at the hospital for a visit. We walked into an empty room, the bed made, and no sign of my grandfather. A nurse strolled in, saw us staring at the bed in confusion, and told us that my grandfather had been moved to the funeral home. It was one of the few times I saw my father lost and confused.  He said under his breath, “Oh.  Oh.”  Any possible exclamation points were buried under his sorrow as he pushed from his heart a barely audible period. I imagine my father whimpered as an infant:  “Huh. Huh. Huh.” At birth, he was nothing more than a period waiting to grow into a man and live a life filled with punctuation.

When I worked at Bradley University, a student often showed up at my desk wanting to talk.  She was undeniably a question mark. She’d crash through the door and say, “I guess you’re having a busy day, huh, Miss Brenda?”

“Yes, it’s busy today.”

“Well I don’t guess you’ve got time to see why the change machine won’t work, do you?”

“Give me just a minute and I’ll take a look at it.”

“I don’t guess you’ve got a few dollars in change I can use until then, do you?”

I would dig through my desk and count out some quarters.  She’d continue questioning me. “You know I waited until the last minute to study for my finals, don’t you?”

Everything that came out of that girl's pretty little mouth arrived attached to a question mark. One day, she'll be dressed in a wedding gown when she looks into her handsome groom's eyes and asks, "Will I?"

I knew a man in Washington who loved semicolons: "Brenda, some people will be wearing jeans, khakis, or even shorts tonight; others, those who like to dress up, will be wearing formal attire."

I never heard him speak in a fragmented sentence.  Never in run-on sentences.  He was a brave man who always chose the dreaded formal semicolon: "It snowed heavily all night; however, I was able to shovel enough snow to get the car out of the parking place."

And then, there is the ellipsis. . . .

It is sometimes difficult to hold a conversation with an ellipsis person: “I believe we’ve met before, Mrs. . . .”

“Rose.”

“Yes.  It was at the. . . .”

“Farmers market.”

“Oh yes.  You were . . . .”

“Painting.”

My son has a friend who doesn’t believe in periods or commas under any circumstances: “Patrick I ran all the way over here cause you wouldn’t answer the phone and nobody’s answering my calls and I sent you a text but you didn’t answer it and then finally I got your mother on the phone and she said you were asleep but I knew you’d be awake by the time I got here and I wonder if you want to run up to Starbucks and get some coffee and maybe we can call some of our friends to go with us but only if you feel like it do you have any coke in the fridge I’m thirsty (huff, huff, huff) oh God all you've got is diet coke and you know I don't drink diet coke what are your thinking man (huff, huff, huff) and what the heck is that don't tell me it's Pepsi since when did you start drinking Pepsi don’t you know coca cola was invented right here in Georgia!”

If I had to describe myself in terms of punctuation and sentence flaws, I’d say I’m a comma and a comma splice and a run-on sentence and a sentence fragment.  All those things. 

This blog post emerged from my struggle over the punctuation of one sentence.  I was writing a sentence in a short story and couldn’t decide if it needed an exclamation point.  

I guess it does! Maybe it needs three or four!!!! Even better, in CAPS!!!!