No one hired me as grammar cop. No one appointed me human spell checker. I freely admit that I am capable of making mistakes. (My area of weakness tends to be pronunciation.)

I don't know why persistent public displays of spelling and grammatical errors drive me crazy. Do I want to feel superior to others? Does the lack of interest in the niceties of language indicate social structure degradation? Does the appearance of ignorance mean more than actual content? Why do I care when apparently others do not? I suspect only years of therapy will answer that question.

When I saw Lone Tree Recreation Center had printed several signs touting "10% off admisssion," I had a good laugh. Obviously, someone's finger stuttered on the keyboard (or the writer was a closet herpetologist.) The extra "s" was crossed out by the first person I approached. No big deal. I pointed out to three people at Sam's Club on Quebec that one of their signs plastering the store read (in part) "Ask how you can get you a 2% discount." The signs were soon changed. The Chik-Fil-A on Highlands Ranch Parkway had painted on its door "Smoke Free Enviroment." I mentioned that periodically for years without success, but eventually triumphed.

Other cases have been extremely resistant to correction. I spent well over a year trying to get the Lone Tree Voice to change their publisher's box, which referred to "Letters to the Edior." After a particularly sarcastic e-mail, the change to "editor" was made. It lasted one week. The next week "edior" popped up again. I know they were just taunting me. Am I the only one that finds the misspelling of "editor" especially ironic? In the end, that issue, too, was resolved.

My all-time favorite lost cause is the caller identification for Douglas County Schools. When you get the "your kid banged his head on the playground" call, check your Caller ID. It comes up "Doulglas Cnty S." Yes, a school district's name is misspelled. I've called school offices and e-mailed administrators. Someone suggested it was a phone company problem, but I have no idea which phone company the school district employs. (The guy in charge of the District's phone network never returned my call.) One administrator told me that Caller IDs are always inaccurate because they can't fit the whole name. I tried to explain that this particular identification included an extra letter, to no avail.

My children (abysmal spellers with one exception) say it is my own peculiar form of obsessive-compulsive disorder. "You're the only one that cares," they wail while my lips purse as I am rereading a hand-written placard in a Minnesota cafe. "Please don't embarrass us again." I signal the waitress and say in a confidential tone, "Two S's in dessert. You see, you only want one desert, but you'll have two desserts." The smiling waitress taps her pencil on the pad. "So, you'll be having two desserts then?"