The Second “S” in Ass Stands for Sclerosis

The MS humor blog where I bare my soul and some bottoms too

The second “s” in ass stands for multiple sclerosis. 

There I said it. 

Hear me out. 

I’m not calling those of us with MS, asses.

Nor am I saying that multiple sclerosis itself is an ass.  Ass is far too tame a word to describe MS. 

What I AM saying is that in my MS brain I can easily equate the second “s” in the word ass to sclerosis.  As in, cognitive issues with MS make me feel like I constantly do things half-assed.

See the connection?

No?

Then how about this- sclerosis is the second word of the disease we call multiple sclerosis which makes it equal to the second word in the description half-assed.  If that wasn’t enough, when I do something half-assed I feel like an ass when I try to correct it. 

I’m surprised I have come this far in my MS humor blog life without swearing too much or making this connection before. We with MS have many terms and sayings we use to name our illness; disability, handicap, weirdness, fatigue, frailty, suckiness, lameness, infirmity, condition, ailment, etc.

Before my MS diagnosis I was considered somewhat smart. I even graduated Magna Cum Laude from college.  I have no idea what Magna Cum Laude means except that it is something fancy professors only say about wicked smart students, unless those students happen to be sleeping with the professors. I was NOT sleeping with any professors though I briefly dated one of the colleges maintenance guys, but I don’t think he had anything to do with scholarship. 

So I know the basics.

But last Sunday morning had me in cognitive hell trying to fix a mistake I had made only to keep making more mistakes. I ordered bookmarks for my new book.

(Don’t worry, this whole post isn’t a promo for the new book; that just comes towards the end.)

When I received them, folks noticed some pretty bad grammar mistakes I hadn’t caught when I placed the order though I checked and re-checked and re-checked again.

One mistake was the word “too” where it should have been the word “to” and the word “beyond” lost its “d” to make it “beyon.”

When you are trying to sell a book and hand out promotional materials you don’t want potential readers to think you don’t even know basic grammar.  The errors had to be fixed, which was going to cost a frustrating fortune but what could I do? I couldn’t hand out bookmarks that looked like they had been done half-assed when I had worked so hard on them. 

An anonymous person from the print company emailed me the changes for my approval but then I discovered other blunders I hadn’t caught during the first round.

How is that possible?

I noticed that the first “D” in my name was capitalized in one spot where it shouldn’t be which was confusing enough, and that in another spot the “de” was separated from the “Sousa” which is wrong.

(Leave it to me to have a confusing name AND multiple sclerosis.)

My print dude fixed that. Then I noticed that there was a period in the middle of one of the sentences my print guy emailed me in the revision.  I asked him to change it to a comma. 

We went back and forth several times with me noticing more things that I should have noticed before I even contacted him for the first revisions, things I went over with a magnifying glass. Speaking of magnifying glasses, the print was too small where it listed my website. Back that revision request went. 

I wasn’t the only one making mistakes though. As if to punish me for all these changes I noticed he changed my first name to Wonne. I may be a cognitive mess but even I know that’s not my name. Wonne isn’t even Portuguese.

(Actually, Yvonne isn’t either. My mom just liked it. She’s a rebel like that.)

That email revision request went back too. 

Then, just as the bookmark looked perfect, I realized that the period in the middle of the sentence I caught before was actually correct. The problem was that it was really two separate sentences and the second sentence needed to be capitalized. I asked him to take the comma out, put the period back and capitalize the word after it.  Even though I apologized and tried to explain my brain issues with each revision email, I felt like a total ass. 

Apparently he thought I was an ass too and stopped responding! 

Did he think I was messing with him for fun?

That I had nothing better to do on a Sunday morning?

Or did he think I just half-assed checking the bookmarks before contacting him, on this second round of bookmarks, and was proofreading each line one by one and contacting him on each line? 

I wasn’t.

My MS cognitive brain just kept glossing over the mistakes and every once in a while, would highlight one for me.

People tell me all the time “that’s not MS, I do that too.”

No, they don’t.

Not this much and this often.

With MS cognitive difficulties, as least with me, it’s as though our brain decides the mistake is not a mistake at all and accepts it as is. Which leads to the MS’er feeling like an ass while people think she is half-assed in her work.  Which make MS a major ASSHOLE!!

In the end, I called the company and got someone else who took pity on me, or just wanted to get me off the phone as I explained my sob story and how the other guy I was working with must hate me, and the second guy finished the job.  It cost over $150 which is another irony since many MS’ers don’t have lots of extra money to spend on fixing their mistakes and unfortunately, multiple sclerosis does not have its own credit card. 

But I think the issues are finally resolved and I know the new bookmarks won’t have any typos in them this time.

I checked. 

PS Can anyone use a bunch of pretty but multiple mistake filled bookmarks from the first batch????

PPS If all of these cognitive grammar issues haven’t scared you off from my book, which I had a lot of help with so hopefully the mistakes in it will be minimal, then you should know that preorders are now available! 

Use this link and enter the promo code PREORDER2023 to get 15% off! 

https://www.blackrosewriting.com/biographymemoir/shelterofthemonument