A Column That's Totally Awesome

When you're married, there's an almost endless list of things you can do to annoy your spouse. I've been married almost a decade, and I've discovered that I can aggravate my husband (with so little effort!) in the following ways: cleaning obsessively, complaining about the weather in Utah or Utah in general, wearing stinky perfume, showing up 15 minutes late for everything. But, oddly enough, the thing that bugs my husband most is when I use the word "awesome." I can't help it. I can't get enough of the popular '80s adjective. It works in so many situations. You can use it sarcastically when your 1-year-old child sneaks away: "Tyler, that's awesome that you are drinking out of the toilet. Again." You can use it in moments of true wonderment: "Oreo Cakesters now come in 100-calorie packs? Awesome!"

There's a whole host of products displaying this super-cool adjective on their label. I recently purchased a bottle of LA's Totally Awesome Carpet Spot & Stain Remover at a dollar store in American Fork. I was dubious about the name at first, until my 3-year-old son used a red Sharpie marker to draw dots all over my carpet. The $1 cleaner was totally, totally awesome.

Entrepreneur, pitchman and former Utah gubernatorial hopeful Dell "SUPERDELL" Schanze has named a handful of companies after my favorite word. Totally Awesome Computers makes for a fairly pedestrian-sounding business, but you have to love a store called Totally Awesome Guns and Range. I have never been in a TV commercial, carried a handgun, or lost a part of my finger in a freeway motorcycle accident. It's fair to say that SUPERDELL and I have little in common. But we are wed, so to speak, by our affection for one awe-inspiring adjective. Also, we both drive my husband a little crazy. And what could be more awesome than that?

-- Elyssa Andrus

Published Jan 4, 2009 in the Daily Herald.