National Literacy Day
Today is National Literacy Day in Shalampax. The government had planned major events to commemorate the day. Unfortunately, the plans were communicated in writing rather than verbally.
Half of the people who were supposed to stage the events were unable to read the government’s notices. The other half misread the bulletins and thought the government had declared a Nutritional Licorice Day.
At least they got “Day” right. One out of three’s not bad.
As a result of this miscommunication, free licorice will be provided in the government office today for anyone who wants it. The good news is that healthful nutrients have been added to the licorice. The bad news is this has totally destroyed the taste of the candy.
Due to the frequent use of the words “read” and “reading” in the government’s notices, words that were also misread, only red licorice is available.
Gotta love the government “help”. So where’s my red licorice??
This helps explain why so many of those ersatz Nigerian financial email scams generated right there in Shalampax are so poorly phrased with so many words misspelled.
I’m guessing that the greatest efforts to promote literacy there is closed captioning on television.
@David: They are phrased poorly and contain misspellings? Sorry, I hadn’t noticed. Closed captioning on television? That’s overkill on that literacy thing, don’t you think?
@nipsy: I’ll let our government know you love it. To get your licorice you have to come to Shalampax. You might want to consider buying your own licorice. I don’t know how familiar you are with Shalampax, but our xenophobia extends to eating any foreigners who manage to make it to our island. And when I say “eat foreigners,” I don’t mean that in a good way.
Dang! I’m shure I dident receib my notise. Due you half my correct adress? I lyke black licorish.
@Screaming Me-Me: Just out of curiosity, was the first thing that your parents saw after you were born a “Screaming Me-Me” (whatever that is)? That’s how we name our children here, although we usually ram all of the words together into a single name. The reason I ask is, your literacy skills seem very Shalampaxian. If you are Shalampaxian, that would entitle you to come here to pick up your licorice without suffering the normal fate of foreigners on our shores, which, as I said to Nipsy, is to be eaten. Sorry, the Nutritional Licorice Day organizing committee won’t mail out the licorice.
By the way, as I said in my post, there’s only red licorice available. Oh right, your reading skills aren’t quite up to snuff. Allow me to repeat, theirs oanly read licorish avvailiable.
@Stickinthemud
Yez, I am a closet Sha,,Shalala, yeah, won uf those. Iz thar a sueport groop?
I lyke black licorish.
@Screaming Me-Me: Sorry, there are no support groups set up yet, but for a fee we will do just about anything.
If you really are Shalampaxian, would you be interested in moving here? If so, do you have any pictures of yourself you’d be willing to send me? We have a very limited supply of apartments in Shalampax, but, because the women here aren’t known for their great beauty, if you’re the least bit attractive a nice picture could go a long way to convincing one of the guys to share his apartment with you. Take me, for example. If you’d like to send along any pictures you can send them to Stickinthemud@shalampax.com. Don’t worry if they are intimate pictures. I won’t show them to too many of the guys.
I’m sure I could rustle up some black licorish for you.
@Stickinthemud
Verry funny, that ain’t no reel email adress.
@Screaming Me-Me: Try it. It’s real. Any of the authors here at Shalampax Speaks can get an email address just by asking for it. So far, I’m the only one brave enough to risk the slings and arrows of outrageous spam (something we know well here in Shalampax because our spam firms are responsible for most of it), but, yes, Stickinthemud@shalampax.com is a valid email address. If you don’t believe me, try it. If you want to test that attachments in emails to that address work, you might want to consider those intimate photos I mentioned in my earlier comment.