I really can keep it to myself, really and truly

I just wrote this to a friend and colleague and thought it was worth repeating:

I meant to ask you -- how much do you care about this stuff? You can think of grammar, spelling, and diction on a scale of 0 to 100, with 0 being unreadable, and 50 being a high school dropout's casual notes tacked on the refrigerator, and 80 being most people's emails, and 90 being good enough ALMOST no one would notice any mistakes, and 95 being so close to perfect that only a real bitch like me would go pointing out a misuse of the subjunctive mood, and 100, of course, being perfect. I can provide any level of modification you desire (or none). I'm not trying to annoy the living shit out of people.

You know, I was seventeen when my high school boyfriend (he went to prep school and I went to public school, a source of some serious class-based resentment) corrected my use of the subjunctive. I had never heard of the subjunctive. I'm sure I brushed it off ("Oh, who cares, you know what I meant"), but a person doesn't forget such a thing. Oh, you prep school boys know when to say "were"? I'll do you one better. Eternally.