The pet peeve that will send me to an early grave.

I have to say, I think one of my biggest grammatical pet peeves, the pet peeve to end all pet peeves, the one tiny thing that drives me absolutely certifiably insane, is when people write sentences like these:

• I wish I could of bought a unicorn.
• I could of gone to Narnia, but I decided against it.
• I guess I could of used proper grammar, but I decided that writing this abomination was a better idea.
• Here, let me write 'could of'' instead of  'could have' because YOLO grammar get outta my way.

Every single time I see people write "could of" instead of "could have," I swear that a small part of me shrivels up and dies. I honestly don't understand how this error occurs as often as it does. I suppose it stems from the contraction "could've" which I guess sounds like "could of," but if you write it down, isn't it obviously which two words are supposed to be used together? I mean seriously, "could of" doesn't make the least bit of sense. Maybe it's just me, but I actually can't think of any situation in which those two words appear like that, and in writing this sentence I have officially committed my life to finding an exception because that's what I do. I fixate on little things like this when I can't find reason, which also explains my obsession with Nicolas Cage. The things he does are just so completely ridiculous, I can't help but get wrapped up in the appreciation of his entire being.

The point of this whole post is that I think this is one reason why I want to be an editor. I can't help but want to tell these people about this one very small but very horrendous mistake that they are making when they write "could of" instead of "could have." 

This is why I exist.