Nobody likes a bump, especially editors

The word “bump” has a deservingly bad rap. After all, nobody likes to get bumped off, from a flight, or in the shoulder when you’re waiting in a concession stand line at a sporting event. The mustard stain still hasn’t come out of my lucky Miami Dolphins sweatshirt — rotten Jets fan.

We’ve all heard of a nasty bump in the road, or speed bump, right? For me it’s more like bump in the driveway. It’s when my daughter leaves her tri­cycle behind the minivan, so when we’re getting ready to go on a trip we back over it on the way out of the garage.
This, of course, plays well into the popular, yet scary, bump in the night when my daughter awakes suddenly in the middle of the night, releasing a horrible scream the second her mind replays the scene of her smashed tricycle. She then falls out of bed, bumping, but what else, her noggin’.

If she could only sleep like a bump on a log — peacefully and past 5 a.m. — then my wife and I would be better rested and maybe in a better mood in the morning. And maybe the word “bump” would have a better reputation than that of something that displaces, interrupts or jolts something else out of place or permanently out of order.

At least it would in the Kissman house. But, no. The word bump is bad, through and through. No word that starts with a “b” and ends with a “p” is good. Don’t believe me? Think about it: burp, beep, blowup, blimp and bullwhip don’t exactly have the best intentions by definition.

Just try saying bump, out loud and as fast as you can: Bump, bump, bump. It even sounds bad. Reminds me of the 1983 Mercury Zephyr I drove in college. “Here comes Kissman,” everyone would say as my car chugged, puffed and bumped, bumped, bumped down the road.

In the graphic design, layout world of magazines, a bump occurs when an advertisement is inadvertently nudged into the text, bumping usually the last three or four words of a story off the page. If this happened in a murder mystery, no one would ever know who the killer was, and in the case of Michigan REALTOR®, readers can’t figure out how
the story ends.

The trick, of course, is to catch these bumps when they happen, in the proof stage, before the magazine is sent to the printer.

This is no easy task. We have several proofreaders scrutinize the magazine, making sure the content is accurate and stories complete, but every now and then, the bump happens and staff has to scramble around to answer the request of readers for the end of the stories.

So, in order, I’ll finish them here. Please keep in mind: these are usually just one or two words and usually don’t affect the overall thrust of the st­ory, but more or less annoy anyone who actually takes the time to read it.

And here are the ends of the stories that have been bumped … “for goodness sake.” And, “… Tim, please give it a rest.”

So that’s it. That and the magazine will now feature ending characters on every story so that we, and you, know that it is complete. So if you don’t see a H at the end of a story, know that a bump occurred.

Hopefully, we’ll rid ourselves of the nasty bumps and deal with other, important matters, like selling properties, repairing tricycles, removing mustard stains, sleep and ending stories on the correct word. If the story is about our great members, like it usually is, then it will definitely end on a positive note, too.

Keep on reading!