I love my new place. I really do. I live three miles from where I work (go ahead, mutter curses under your breath as you stare at your most recent gas receipt), I have friends who live merely steps away, and there’s a handful of restaurants and shopping nearby. It’s a real peach of a place to live.

However, there are a few very small negatives. One of these is that a three-mile, straight-shot commute to work can make for some redundant scenery. Case in point: a certain buffet-style restaurant with a name that invokes images of a precious metal and the scene of a gunfight in a famous western movie. If you’re not sure of the name, maybe this picture will “ring a bell”…

Ok, probably not unless you’re a movie nerd like me. Anyway, on the sign in front of this restaurant, there is currently an ad for the all new “Captian’s Table” seafood buffet. Yes, that’s what it says – Captian. Not Captain, as in the commander of a ship. Or Caption, like the oft-hilarious broken English found adorning cat photos at ICanHasCheezburger.com. Not even Caspian, the mythical Prince of Narnia. You, my friends, have the privilege of sharing a table with Captian, benevolent patron saint of the all new seafood buffet.

I see this sign a minimum of twice a day. Mere feet from the road, this malapropos marquee leers at me with its brazen misspelling. Honestly – it’s been there for weeks, has no one realized their error? I know, it’s just a sign. I tell myself that every time I see it.

But, you see, I have a problem: I’m a very good speller. In fact, I’ve worked very hard to be a good speller.

Done laughing now? Good.

I know it’s ludicrous, but I can’t help it. Spell check is my fiercest rival. Those jagged red lines under words in my posts make me cringe. My aversion is so severe that I feel I’ve failed myself if I can’t make it through an entire post without seeing them. But why, you ask?

I think it all stems from the time I was in a spelling bee in 3rd grade. I made it to the final round, stepped up confidently and spelled “equation:” e-q-u-a-s-i-o-n. Ouch. 30 seconds later, I had the motivation for a lifelong obsession with spelling.

It’s not that I expect everyone to share my obsession with spelling – I know that’s a little nutty. But I do think that in a business environment, correct spelling is extremely vital. Especially when it’s something as public-facing as the road sign in front of your restaurant. I’ve seen misspellings in many advertisements, in marketing copy on websites, and even in e-mails from very high ranking executives. Has spell check really made us all this lazy?

Maybe if spell check was more invasive, forcing a small penance for each spelling misdeed, we would all take a second glance at the words we type. Personally, I like the idea of spell check employing a very mild electric shock. Instead of the zig-zag red line, you get a little “zzzzzt!” Brilliant, no? Okay, okay. You’re a skeptic. But before you write me off as a lunatic nerd, look at it this way: Do you think everyone would make a point of remembering that “i before e” rule if they knew a little shock was coming? I bet you would.