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Dramatis (Un)Ordered

• Clovis Strickland — Vigilante of Vibes, wearer of a dignified foil crown, hobbyist wrenchman.

• Boot Barnes — Note-taking populist, aspiring sloganist, part-time philosopher of fried food.

• Sheriff Peeler — Keeper of peace, tickets, and a phone that refuses to spell his title “sherrif.”

• Mabel Dean Ashcroft — Proprietor of Mabel’s Meatloaf, protects gravy and grammar by instinct alone.

• Reverend Gentry — Pastor, projector-wrangler, defender of the Word (as typed, not auto-corrected).

• Daisy — Town hound, naps under routers and near truth.

• Assorted Outsiders — Polite, confused, and craving grits (not “grates”).

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ACT I — The Bulletin Comes Out Clean

Fellowship Hall smelled like coffee, lemon oil, and anxious tradition. The Wednesday bulletin—usually a pothole-ridden road of consonants—lay in tidy stacks. Titles were capitalized. Commas behaved. “Spaghetti Supper” wore two gleaming t’s like cufflinks.

Boot Barnes stood over the stack as if it were radioactive. “This looks like a brochure for a dental clinic,” he muttered, flipping pages. “Where’s the charm? Where’s the ‘spagetti’ we grew up with?”

Reverend Gentry adjusted his glasses. “We had a volunteer from the youth group run it through… a program.”

“A program,” Boot repeated, suspicious. “Like 12-step for vowels?”

The Reverend gave a theological shrug. “It said ‘suggestions.’ We accepted all.”

From the back, Clovis Strickland emerged in his foil crown, polishing it with a napkin. “Acceptin’ all suggestions is how Rome fell, preacher.” He tapped the bulletin with a wrench he apparently carries the way others carry pens. “This is gentrified grammar.”

Sheriff Peeler wandered in, Daisy padding behind. He picked up a bulletin, squinted, and frowned. “It corrected my name in the ‘Thank-Yous.’ Says ‘Sheriff Peeler’ instead of ‘Sherrif.’ That’s my signature mistake. Now how folks supposed to know it’s me?”

Daisy yawned, stepped on Peeler’s phone, and sent a text that read: “On my way. Also: arf.” The phone corrected it to “art.” Daisy blinked at her new career path.

Boot slapped the stack. “If we let this stand, next thing you know, we’ll have to park straight.”

Clovis lifted his wrench like a gavel. “Not on my watch. I move we form a Spelling Preservation League.”

Reverend Gentry eyed the wrench. “Can it be a pen next time?”

Clovis considered. “Only if it’s misspelled.”

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ACT II — Grits, Grates, and Grown Men Crying at a Diner

Mabel’s Meatloaf the next morning pulsed with breakfast and grievance. The hand-lettered menu—reprinted weekly on a copier that adds its own personality—offered:

• Bicsuits & Grayvee

• Catfesh (Markit Price)

• Grits / Grates (circle one)

A couple from Chattanooga approached the counter. “Hi,” the woman said carefully, “two coffees and… grits?”

Mabel, who treats questions like negotiations, narrowed her eyes. “You mean grates?”

“Grits,” the couple said in unison, hopeful.

Mabel placed a proprietary hand on the menu. “Spellin’s part of the brand. We’re not a chain. We’re a community with a flavor profile.”

Boot, scribbling in his notebook at the corner table, looked up. “That there is a constitutional right to confusion.”

The Chattanooga man tried diplomacy. “We just want… corn mush. The creamy kind.”

“Say it like that and you’ll get two bowls,” Mabel nodded, writing Corn Mush, Creamy on an order slip as though inventing a new dish. “That’ll be $1 extra for the poetry.”

Clovis burst in. “Mabel! Emergency session! The church bulletin was sanitized by an algorithm.”

Mabel didn’t look up. “So was my cousin’s Facebook last year. Didn’t take.”

“It changed Sheriff Peeler’s name,” Boot added gravely.

From a booth by the window, Sheriff Peeler raised a fork. “It’s identity erasure,” he called, then to the room at large: “Also, someone’s black pickup is parked diagonally on two lines. I can look away if the person confesses on a napkin.”

A teenager at the counter whispered, “It’s mine, sir.” The phone in his hand corrected sir to sire. Peeler glanced at the screen. “See? Revolt.”

Mabel slid two steaming bowls to the outsiders. “Creamy Corn Mush,” she announced, daring anyone to object. “House special since just now.”

The outsiders took careful first bites and declared it perfect. Mabel allowed herself the smallest smile. “Good. Now spell it however you want in your diaries.”

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ACT III — The Emergency Meeting of the Holier-Than-Thou Committee

Folding chairs multiplied like loaves in Fellowship Hall. The Holier-Than-Thou Committee—who have no official charter beyond firm tones—called an emergency meeting. A handmade sign read: “AGENDA: 1) Words, 2) Culture, 3) Potluck Sign-Ups.”

Reverend Gentry tapped the lectern. “Friends, the Word matters. But also, so does the wayward word. Our bulletin came out… correct.”

A murmur of alarm.

“We propose,” continued the Reverend, “a gentle season without auto-correct. Let our fingers wander and our vowels testify.”

“Gentle?” Clovis snorted. “Make it law.”

From the outsider section, a woman raised her hand. “We appreciate heritage. But when the diner menu says ‘car fresh’ instead of ‘catfish,’ we get a pine-scented air freshener on a bun.”

A helpful usher held up the sandwich for evidence. It was, indeed, piney.

Boot stood with orator’s posture. “Madam, our forefathers didn’t fight a war so you could order dinner without adventure.”

Sheriff Peeler, who had found the refreshments, licked powdered sugar off his thumb. “I motion for a compromise—turn off auto-correct in town limits, but keep spell-check in safety cases like ‘nitroglycerin.’”

Clovis shook his head. “Slippery slope. First it’s nitro, next it’s ‘yield left.’ Then we’ll be California.”

Reverend Gentry gaveled with a hymnbook. “All in favor of a ban on auto-correct—devices, apps, and any machine that presumes to finish our words for us?”

Hands shot up. Some raised two, as if warding off demonic predictive text.

Opposed?

A brave outsider raised a single hand like a periscope. “Can we keep it just at the dentist’s office and for the county nurse? My medical forms shouldn’t say I’m allergic to beagles.”

The room considered. The Holier-Than-Thou conferred. Reverend Gentry nodded. “Health, law, and heavy machinery may retain correction features. Everything else: let errors abound.”

Clovis scribbled the ordinance on a yellow pad: THE AUTOCORRECT ABOLISMENT ACT (AA-AA). He spelled abolishment three different ways on purpose. The room applauded.

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ACT IV — Library Rumblings and the Wrench of Damocles

News traveled as it always does: by Daisy’s leisurely patrol, Boot’s notebook, and an unstoppable chain of porch-to-porch gossip.

At the library, a modest placard appeared on the door: “AUTO-CORRECT TURNED OFF BY DECREE—EXPECT CHARACTER.” The librarian, a peaceful soul, dutifully changed settings while clutching a stress ball shaped like a semicolon.

Clovis arrived in an enforcement mood. “Show me the place where the robots fix our souls.”

The librarian gestured to the Settings menu.

Clovis squinted at the screen. “There it is. ‘Auto-correct.’ Unholy toggle.” He leaned in as if confronting a snake.

Boot, who had come to make a public display of reading, posed with a dictionary the size of a fruitcake. “We’ll guard the door.”

A middle-schooler whispered to a friend, “Are we… safe to misspell?” The librarian nodded solemnly. “Within reason.”

Clovis, satisfied, stuck an embossed sticker on the monitor: Ye Olde Spellig Free Zoon. He grinned. “That’ll show ‘em.”

The outsider couple from the diner slipped in, returning the pine-scented sandwich to the “Little Free Lawsuit” box someone had thoughtfully placed by the door.

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ACT V — Hyena Practice and the Facebook Revival

No ordinance in Sequatchie Crossing becomes real until it survives the Facebook group. At 6:12 p.m., the church account posted: “Hymn Practice at 7.” At 6:13 p.m., the phone’s auto-correct (still enabled by a volunteer who feared the Lord but not the Settings menu) changed it to “Hyena Practice at 7.”

By 6:15 p.m., a photo of Daisy yawning had been added with the caption “Guest Instructor.”

At 6:18 p.m., an outsider kindly asked: “Is this satire or a new ministry?”

At 6:19 p.m., the Holier-Than-Thou Committee posted a decree: “Let it be known that the beasts shall not instruct. Also, auto-correct is, from this hour, therefore, hereby, and henceforth, OFF.”

At 6:20 p.m., Clovis uploaded a video of himself ceremonially toggling off auto-correct on a borrowed phone and sealing the camera with duct tape. In the background, Boot narrated like a wildlife presenter: “Observe the migration of meaning.”

At 6:23 p.m., Sheriff Peeler commented from the parking lot of Mabel’s: “We are enforcing with compassion and misspelt tickets as a last resort.”

At 6:24 p.m., the comment changed to “misspelled,” then reverted to “misspelt,” then to “mispelt,” then to “we know what we mean.”

At 6:28 p.m., Daisy posted a paw emoji. No one claimed responsibility.

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ACT VI — Ordinance Night at Town Hall

The Town Hall’s fluorescent lights buzzed like civic bees. A paper banner read: “Public Hearing: Autocorrect Abolishment Act (AA-AA).” Below it, someone had hand-written: “Bring your own vowels.”

Reverend Gentry opened with a prayer whose punctuation you could hear.

Boot took the podium. “We are not anti-learning. We are pro-local dialect. Our typos are like rock formations: accidental at first, but eventually scenic.”

An outsider stood. “We moved here for the scenery and the people. We love y’all. We’d just like to stop receiving dishes named after household products.”

Mabel folded her arms. “Then order with adjectives.”

A retired teacher rose, bespectacled and gentle. “I love the charm as much as anyone. But I see kids embarrassed to write. Could we teach them both—how to spell and how to laugh when the word goat becomes coat?”

Clovis considered, head tilting like a weathervane. “I ain’t against education,” he admitted. “I’m against a program deciding I meant crouton when I meant crown.”

Sheriff Peeler spoke last, a hand resting on his ticket book. “Here’s my compromise. We pass AA-AA. We post signs. We put up a box at Town Hall—folks can drop things they truly need corrected. Health forms, legal filings, menus laminated for tourists. We correct those with human hands. For everything else: let the language roll like the river.”

Boot nodded slowly. “A human spell brigade.”

Mabel eyed the outsider couple. “If I let y’all proof a laminated tourist menu without changing a single price or portion, would that satisfy the mush crowd?”

The couple brightened. “We’ll do it with a Sharpie. In your handwriting.”

Mabel conceded a whisker of a smile. “Deal. And in return, you learn to pronounce pimento with confidence.”

The vote passed: auto-correct OFF in town except for (1) health, (2) law, (3) heavy machinery manuals, and (4) laminated items in tourist zones—pending review by the Human Spell Brigade.

Clovis banged his wrench softly on the lectern, which was as close to respectful as a wrench can get.

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ACT VII — Signs Go Up, Feelings Come Down

By dawn, handmade placards bloomed everywhere:

• WE SPELL LIKE WE FEEL.

• WELCOME TO A NO-AUTO-CORRCT MUNISIPALITY.

• IF YOU CAN READ THIS, YOU’RE LOCAL.

Sheriff Peeler rehearsed his “soft enforcement” speech. “Warning on first offense,” he told Daisy. “Second offense: community service—hand-lettering menus. Third offense: you sit through a Holier-Than-Thou meeting about commas.”

Daisy looked appropriately chastened.

Boot set up a card table outside Town Hall with a sign: HUMAN SPELL BRIGADE — CONFIDENTIAL CORRECTIONS. He wore a visor. People love a visor.

A teenager shuffled up, sliding over a job application. “Can you fix this? It says I’m proficient in ‘spreadsheats.’”

Boot edited with a flourish. “We’ll keep the typo in your heart.”

The outsider couple arrived with a stack of laminated Mabel menus. “We only changed the items that summon bathroom deodorizers.”

Mabel inspected the markups. “You left Bicsuits?”

“It’s your signature,” the woman said. “We added a footnote: ‘House spelling, house taste.’”

Mabel nodded. “Can’t argue with branding.”

Clovis drifted through town like a benevolent auditor, affixing gold stickers: SPELLING AUTHENTICATED BY VIBE. He stuck one on Sheriff Peeler’s cruiser. “You’re official now.”

Peeler held up a pink slip. “And so are you.” He’d written PARKED SKATTY under Reason. Clovis beamed.

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ACT VIII — The Potluck of Two Worlds

Sunday’s potluck was the test. On the folding tables: tater saled, beens (2 kinds), green gelly ring, corn mush—creamy, and one ambitious outsider contribution labeled quiche. Someone had tucked a note under it: Bless your heart, it’s just pie with confidence.

Reverend Gentry opened with a prayer whose subject and verb agreed for the duration before he let them drift apart like old friends.

During the line-up, a little girl tugged at Boot’s sleeve. “Mister Boot, if I spell ‘hallelujah’ wrong in the choir book, will God know what I mean?”

Boot crouched. “Kiddo, He’s been working with worse handwriting since the tablets. Say it loud; the letters will catch up.”

Across the room, the outsider couple taught a small class on deciphering the local menu. “If you see ‘catfesh,’ it’s a signal. The ‘sh’ means you’re getting the good skillet.”

Mabel clanged a spoon against a pan. “Hear me now: The laminated menu will be in standard English for traveling folks. The chalkboard will remain ours. Two languages, one stomach.”

The room applauded. Daisy barked once, which most took for amen.

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ACT IX — The Night of Quiet Screens

Something changed that week. Phones typed “yall” and didn’t twitch. Group threads filled with kind corrections framed as compliments. “Love the spirit of ‘hyena practice’—do we mean ‘hymn’ tonight? Either way, I’m coming.”

At the library, the semicolon stress ball was retired. The librarian installed a small tray labeled Take a Comma, Leave a Comma for those who wanted punctuation by honor system.

Sheriff Peeler discovered that leaving “sherrif” uncorrected on Facebook drew dozens of cheerful comments and three pies. He accepted all three as evidence of community support.

Clovis, alone in his garage with the garage-door open to the cicadas, rewired the label maker so it occasionally misprinted on purpose. He stuck CAUTION: VERTICLE SURFACES on the broom closet and felt seen.

Boot sat at his kitchen table, writing the next dispatch by lamp light. He left in a dozen misspellings and took out seven. Freedom, he decided, is choosing which mistakes you love.

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Epilogue — A Town That Spells Like It Feels

On Friday night, a placard appeared over the entrance to Mabel’s Meatloaf:

Flavor Is Its Own Dictionary.

Outsiders learned the dialect. Locals learned when a clean line helped—health forms, road signs, the new laminated tourist menu with its polite footnotes. The Human Spell Brigade met on Tuesdays, laughing over words that got away and words they let run on purpose.

The Fellowship Hall bulletin returned to form: “Wednsday Prayre & Spagetti.” Below it, in small type, a new line appeared:

Corrections available upon request. Meanings guaranteed.

Daisy napped under the Wi-Fi router, paws twitching as if chasing commas. Sheriff Peeler wrote a warning for diagonal parking that read “Parked 45ish,” and both parties agreed it was fair.

Clovis crowned himself with a slightly upgraded foil model and declared Sequatchie Crossing “a No-Auto-Correct Municipality with Friendly Exceptions.” Boot immortalized it in his notebook exactly like that, exceptions and all.

And somewhere between “grits” and “grates,” between “hymn” and “hyena,” the town discovered that culture isn’t fragile chalk—it’s cast iron: seasoned by time, sturdy enough for mistakes, and better with use.

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Key Takeaways

• The town bans auto-correct not to reject learning, but to protect a shared vernacular.

• Practical carve-outs (health, law, heavy machinery, laminated menus) keep people safe and visitors fed.

• A Human Spell Brigade (community editors) becomes a social glue.

• Meaning > spelling; culture survives by choosing what to preserve—and what to laugh about.