*Subtitle: Wow, it only took me a month to finish talking about a week-long vacation!

The last day of my vacation was really anti-climactic, so I'm going to get that out of the way first. On Sunday, we did even more nothing. Maybe even less than nothing. We all slept late and spent the entire day in our pajamas. We watched some DVDs, snacked instead of eating actual meals, and spent hours playing video games. Mostly Disney's Extreme Skate Adventure and Tak 2: Staff of Dreams for GameCube. And that's really about it. Like I said, we just might have done less than nothing. This was the end of the vacation. The next day was back to work. Blech.

The real adventure of the weekend was Sister and Annie's housewarming party on Saturday. Late in the afternoon we loaded up the car with our beverages (mostly beer), the food (a tray of brownies and Girlfriend's superb taco dip), and our gifts for the girls.

We brought two gifts. Unfortunately, neither of them was a giant can of nacho cheese sauce. The "real" gift was something girly. Candles and lotions or some crap like that. I was just as surprised as the girls were. I forgot what it was immediately after they opened it.

The other gift was a giant box of liquor. Girlfriend and I cleaned out our cupboard and decided to give them the vast quantity of half-drunk booze bottles we'd accumulated over the years. Schnapps, gin, vodka, whiskey… we had a bottle of just about everything. And we were never going to use it. All we kept was my Jack Daniels and my Cuervo. I'll drink those. Everything else was just sitting around getting dusty. Anyway, our gift of inebriation was very well received. There were "oohs" and "ahhs," a few "holy shits," and I suspect a few erect nipples as well.

Not long after arriving, Sister casually slipped in something about The Grade School Teacher and her husband coming to the party. She always does that to me and, foolishly, I never see it coming. Grade School Teacher is one of my least favorite people. It never occurs to me that she'll be at any particular gathering, and Sister always "forgets" to mention it until after I'm already there.

As with most parties, there wasn't really any structured series of events. Nearly the entire party was everyone sitting around, slowly getting drunk, and laughing at each other. All total, there were fifteen or twenty people there. Among the guests were a few blogstars, including Sister of course, Giggs and husband, the inestimable Keeks, and even Meow. Meow is a third-shifter right now, so she looked a bit startled at having been dragged out into the light.

Highlights of the party, in no particular order, included:

• Sister's friend "S" making an ass out of himself by attempting to describe how racially-oriented humor is only funny when it's offensive and genuinely racist

• Giggs dog clawing up her brand new tent. Serves her right for owning a dirty, dirty dog.

• Keeks arriving with a unique alcoholic treat - liquor soaked gummy bears. Leave it to Keeks to come up with something intoxicating that needs to be sucked to be appreciated.

• The "little boy" who was hitting on Keeks. And doing so rather badly.

• When Keeks' cellphone rang, I may have answered. I may have told the gentleman caller on the line that she couldn't talk at the moment because her mouth was full.

• On a possibly related note, somebody or other placed Keeks in charge of pleasuring me. It wrote this down to make sure I wouldn't forget, but I forgot to write down any context. So feel free to make that as dirty as you want.

• Somebody or other, probably Keeks, was appointed Official Whipped Cream Girl. (She wasn't the only one at this party, honest.)

• The two strangers who walked in the front door and into the bathroom without saying a word.

• Me twice sneaking over to the corner of the living room to remove all the country songs from Sister's iTunes playlist.

• The bathroom door stays closed nicely on its own, but there is no latch. So every time I walked by, I opened the door and left it open. I was very entertained by this. Several other people were not so entertained.

There are probably many other entertaining things that happened, but that was a month ago, and I don't remember anything else. We ate, we drank, we laughed. We all had a great time, but I've been to better parties. After all, no one ended up naked. But then, this was my little sister's party, so it's not like I would've wanted that anyway.

Award-winning comments

Best Comment Trail (tie), September 2005

*Subtitle: No way! He actually did that?

Friday began exactly the same as nearly every other day in my vacation: with a lot of sitting around. The day didn't really begin in earnest until after lunch time when I went to pick up my paycheck.

At my office, Pointy Bearded Boss was just gearing up to involve me in what would likely have been a drawn out political discussion with The Landlord. I listened politely for a moment before using Girlfriend and The Kid waiting in the car as an excuse to slip away.

Off at the bank with my check, Sister informed me that Giggs and husband were in town and the three of them were going out drinking that night. I was all over that. Plans were made, and the family and I were off to what would be one of the highlights of my day: the gas station! (I know, my life is so much more fabulous than yours!)

Just like lots of other people, it's part of my routine to fill the gas tank on payday. A pocket full of money always seems to lessen the impact of three dollars a gallon gasoline.

So I was standing there, pumping gas, when I saw a guy I went to high school with. Let's call him Wolfman. Wolfman and I hung out with the same crowd, but we were never really close. He always seemed nice enough, but he also seemed a little… off. Wolfman never really socialized well. He was always the guy hovering at the edge of things with no idea how to really get involved.

And frankly, Wolfman is really goofy looking.

My strongest memories of him are from gym class. My high school had a pool, and there were co-ed swimming classes required for underclassmen. Wolfman had a problem with swimming classes. Almost every single day, he would get an erection in the pool.

The first time it happened the coach noticed and very discretely told Wolfman he could sit at the edge of the pool until the problem went away. But the problem rarely went away. Almost every single class, Wolfman would sit quietly at the edge of the pool with a hard on pushing against his trunks.

Everybody knew about it. Everyone noticed. But I don't think anyone ever said a word about it. We all just pretended we didn't notice. The girls were probably a bit repulsed by it (after all, Wolfman is really goofy looking) and the boys were all sympathetic. I mean really sympathetic. I still remember that pink and white suit that one girl would wear. Damn. The coach is lucky all of us weren't sitting at the edge of the pool.

But anyway… we all knew. And even though no one ever said a thing, Wolfman knew that we knew. I cannot even imagine the embarrassment he must have felt every single day. And I can't help but wonder the impact it had on him.

Like I said, Wolfman and I were never close. I never knew what to say to him. Greetings were always awkward. They are even more so now. Wolfman is a convicted sex offender. He's registered in the state database and everything. Third degree sexual assault, active supervision until 2025.

Now I really don't know what to say to him. I'll always wonder, did high school gym class mess him up that bad, or would he have turned out exactly the same? Fortunately, we didn't talk that day. We just waved at each other from across the lot as he drove away.

Girlfriend, The Kid, and I did some half-hearted shopping, mostly just killing time until we went to the movies that night. At around six, we dropped The Kid off at Girlfriend's sister's house and went to see 40 Year-Old Virgin. The movie was so-so. It had its moments, but it was mostly forgettable.

We picked up The Kid and I dropped him and Girlfriend off at home while I went out to drink myself stupid with Sister, MrsGiggles, and husband. For the record, it takes very little drinking for me to become stupid. Also for the record, the drunk girl from the McDonald's drive through the week before was out drinking again.

At first we passed the time with darts. I almost nailed The Candyman in the head with one of them, but it really wasn't my fault. Some genius decided it would be a really good idea to put the ATM right next to the dartboard, and Candyman turned into my throw. The dart didn't come within a foot of him, but the look on his face was truly a Kodak moment.

There are two other things worth noting about playing darts. First, my bullseye dance always makes people laugh. Always. And second, MrsGiggles' breasts make excellent bongos. From now on, MrsGiggles' breasts are officially known as "beer bongos." That really has nothing to do with darts, but there you have it.

After darts we moved on to a new game: Boobie Hunt. Given that I have spent my entire adult life and the lion's share of my adolescence chasing after breasts, you'd think I would be pretty good at this game. Well, that's where you'd be wrong. I am only a mediocre boobie hunter. How depressing. MrsGiggles, on the other hand, is a superb boobie hunter. So now you know a little something extra about her.

The whole evening was crammed with drinks and laughs. There wasn't a single dull spot. But there was one very big bright spot.

Because I'm a good good person, when a guy dropped some of his cash I got his attention and pointed it out to him. He was more than a little wasted, so it took me a few tries to get him to see what I was pointing it.

He picked up his dropped money and tried to hand it to me. I left my hands at my sides and tried explaining that it had fallen out of his pocket. He set the cash on the table in front of me. And then I noticed it wasn't cash.

It was play money.

I gave him a confused look. He reached into his pocket and offered up the fat wad of cash that had spawned the runaway bill. His bankroll was one twenty dollar bill, about a half dozen ones, and about an inch of play money.

Amazing. I had no idea people actually did that. I'd heard of this, but never seen anyone actually do it. It was like seeing the Loch Ness Monster. I wanted to say, "Wow! I thought you were a myth!"

I was really entertained by all of this. I just could not contain my laughter. A big grin on my face, I told him, "That is the coolest thing I have ever seen… and it's… really pathetic."

Hanging out in a bar and calling drunken strangers "pathetic" is often a risky proposition, but instead of getting angry he just gave me a really dopey drunk grin. I tried to convince him to hang out by the ATM so I could get away with throwing darts at him, but he just wasn't having any of that.

*Subtitle: I know, my life is so much more fabulous than Lilith's!

I woke on Thursday around 8 to find The Kid watching Cartoon Network and Girlfriend watching Return of The King on the portable DVD player. The very instant I woke, they both started talking at once. The Kid was desperate for more of the waterpark and Girlfriend would've killed for a latte. As you might imagine, Girlfriend won that particular contest. Because she actually threatened to kill me if I made her wait any longer. Yeah… The Kid just can't trump that.

But after the lattes, we were back down at the waterpark. There were considerably fewer soccermoms running around at nine in the morning. Sucks to be me. But because the place was less a zoo than the previous afternoon, I felt comfortable enough leaving The Kid unattended on dry ground long enough to give one of the waterslides a try.

The one I chose was a pipe that emptied into a gigantic bowl, spun the rider around a few times, then dumped into "the lagoon." The slide wasn't really an unpleasant experience, but the pressure going down the first pipe was immense. I felt like my head was going to fly off. And then that swirling around in the bowl part? I can now say I know exactly what it would feel like to be flushed down the toilet. Apparently, people ride these things for fun. The slide was menacingly named "Timber Rattler" or something silly like that. I think a more fitting, and more fun, name would be "Chocolate Swirlie." Maybe "Flush-o-Matic?" I'll get back to you on that. And by "get back to you on that," I really mean "immediately forget about it."

After the waterpark, The Kid asked the question I'd been expecting all morning. "Dad, can we go to the arcade?"

"No, Kid, we can't."

"But I want to spend the rest of my money!"

"And you can do that. You can spend the rest of your money anyway you want."

"I want to spend it in the arcade!"

"Do you know how much money you have left?"

"No."

"You have eleven cents. Do you know how many games you can play with eleven cents?"

"How many?!"

"None."

"Dad, that wasn't very nice!"

"What? Besides, maybe you'll want to save the rest of your money for shopping."

"Oh yeah! I want to buy stuff!"

Was I mean? Yes, almost certainly. Did he learn a lesson? I hope, but probably not.

As expected, The Kid went careening through every store in the city with his eleven cents burning a hole in his pocket. Every six feet was a new "Dad, can I buy this?" I patiently and methodically explained that, "No, Kid, that costs twenty-four dollars. You have eleven cents." Every time there was a little pout, and every time I tried to drive home my point about trying to budget his money. He ended up buying a ten cent gum ball and returning home with a single penny in his wallet.

We spent the afternoon shopping, but bought very little. We returned home with a few books and not much else.

Back home again, we sat on the couch with drinks to watch the end of Return of The King. I was pleasantly surprised that Girlfriend watched the entire six disc epic in only five days. I thought for certain it was going to take her weeks to get through the whole thing. When it was all finished, she turned to me and said, "Wow, that movie was incredible. That's… wow. Just… wow. That was so good." Pause, pause. "But I am never watching that again."

Afterward (To this chapter only, there are more chapters to come)

You may have noticed that our two day mini-getaway didn't really have a downside. Well, unless you count… all of it. But I had soccermoms to look at and chocolate martinis to drink, so I consider the experience a net gain. Given that my junk had been uninjured for several days now, you might assume I'd survived The Curse of Riddick, but this was not yet the case.

Several days after coming home, I learned that I brought more home with me than I knew. I also picked up some lovely tinea pedis at the waterpark. Athlete's foot. Sweet. Riddick strikes again. That bastard.

*Subtitle: I knew you were messing with me. Finally, something happens!

Wednesday began the same as every other day so far. We slept in, then attempted to do absolutely nothing for as long as possible. Amazingly, The Kid actually slept late that morning. He didn't get up until nearly 10. Girlfriend and I passed the time watching more Lord of The Rings. It was even her idea this time. Like I'd hoped, she was actually getting involved in the story. We finished all of The Two Towers that morning.

Around noon, we packed our bags for the only vacation-like event in our whole vacation. We were off to a hotel and family waterpark place about an hour south of here. Check-in time wasn't until 4 p.m., so we killed time wandering aimlessly around a mall near the hotel.

At a discount bookstore, I finally got around to buying that copy of Christopher Hitchens' "Why Orwell Matters." I'll probably never read it, but it looks nice on my bookshelf.

When finally we arrived at the hotel, The Kid saw the waterpark through the giant lobby window and begin doing his best impression of a meth-addled chihuahua with a bladder problem. It simply was not possible to move fast enough in his quest to get into his swim trunks and start playing.

We checked-in, got our wrist bands, and found our room. ("Dad, can we go yet?") Then we found the nearest entrance to our room and moved the car closer to that door. ("Hurry, Dad!") Because, of course, we guessed wrong and parked all the way on the other side of the complex. ("Dad, come on!")

We got our bags back to our room and changed into our suits. ("Is it time yet, Dad?") We made the trek down to the water park, and The Kid nearly passed out from the excitement. It was one of those "kid in a candy store" moments. He had no idea what to do first. He ran around like a fool for nearly ten minutes ("Hey, no running! You're gonna fall on your head!"), unable to decide what to do first.

Girlfriend wasn't too thrilled about any of it. She's one of those women who thinks she looks terrible in a swimsuit, i.e., she is a woman. I've tried convincing her she's wrong, but that's just not going to happen. Ever. So she spent most of her time submerged to her neck in the whirlpool off in the corner.

Which left me to follow The Kid as he gleefully zoomed from one play area to another. The whole thing would have been excruciatingly dull for me if not for one thing: soccermoms. Oh, sweet Jesus, the soccermoms. They were everywhere, and in various states of undress.

"Ooh, look at that one. She's workin' that bikini. Yeah, that's right, jump up and down with the kids. You know how I like it. What's that noise? Is someone coughing?"   "Whoa, sorry Kid. Didn't see you drowning there. Try to be more careful, ok little man?"   "Now where was I? Hey, check out that one over there. Oh my God, she's playing with one of the pull chain shower thingies…"

After a few hours of frolicking, we went back to our room to dry off and dress for dinner. Nearly everyone else would do the same thing: walk back to their rooms fresh from the water. So seeing all those soccermoms wrapped in towels walking through the hallways made me think of a lot of alternate definitions for the term "room service."

Anyway… we dried, dressed, and went to a ribs restaurant. I was so disappointed that we couldn't get The Kid to order ribs. I was all atwitter at the thought of seeing him with BBQ sauce hanging everyplace from his ears to his eyebrows. But unfortunately, he just wasn't playing my game. He chose a mini cheese pizza. Bummer.

After dessert it was back to the hotel. This time The Kid was all charged up about the wallet-draining arcade the fine people at the hotel saw fit to place right next to the only entrance to the waterpark.

Being even less interested in video games than waterslides, Girlfriend stayed in our room to curl up with a book while I took The Kid to waste vast amounts of money. (I've you've never read The Hot Librarian, now is an excellent time to check out her Chuck E. Cheese vs. The Hot Librarian post. It's a similar experience, only hers has liquor, Eriq La Salle, and is generally much funnier.)

Before leaving home, we stopped by the bank to cash in The Kid's piggy bank. He had a whopping $17.11 in his pocket. We started out by getting five dollars in tokens: $3 of his money and $2 of mine. Again, he ran around like a fool trying to decide which game he'd play first. He burned through the five dollars in minutes and was back to begging for more money. We played a bit of a game with this whole thing, one I knew he'd end up losing.

"Kid, you can spend as much of your money as you want. It's your money."

"I want to spend it all, Dad!"

"You can do that if you want, but remember we're going shopping tomorrow. If you spend all your money now, you won't be able to buy anything tomorrow."

"Oh. I want to buy stuff tomorrow, too."

"So much money do you want to spend now?"

"I want to spend it all, Dad!"

We went back and forth like this, two and three dollars at a time, until he'd burned through all seventeen of his dollars and ten of mine too. These arcade machines are all fitted to dispense tickets at the end of a game, so when the money dried up we went to cash them all in and choose prizes.

The Kid had his eye on a 10-inch plush Lisa Simpson for 800 tickets. After 90 minutes and 27 dollars, we had 415 tickets. The Kid ended up settling for a hacky sack, a plastic matchbox car, an eraser, and a Tootsie Roll.

He took that particular disappointment better than I might have expected. He was probably still on something of a video game high. On the way back to our room to sleep he asked, "Can we go again tomorrow, Dad?"

"Sure… you can spend the rest of your money anyway you want."

"How much do I have left?"

"Eleven cents."

"How many games can I get with that?"

"None."

Pause. "Dad, that wasn't very nice."

*Subtitle: This can't be your vacation. I refuse to believe it.

Tuesday began with more of the same: a whole lot of nothing. We slept in, we lounged on the couch, we went out for lattes. We wandered aimlessly for a few hours (which is my way of saying I've been dragging my feet for so long I've forgotten all the details) before the day's only real event.

The blood drive! I know, my life is so much more fabulous than Snakehead's! The Red Cross was doing their more or less quarterly blood drive in one of the conference rooms at a nearby hotel from 11:30 to 5:30. I started donating just after 9-11 and I've kept it up sort of consistently ever since. I would love to go to every blood drive, but I'm a little hesitant to push my luck by asking Pointy Bearded Boss for time off that I don't really need. But this time I was on vacation, so I had no excuse for skipping out.

I've tried to mix things up by arriving at different times, hoping to find that one magic time they're not busy. Well, I've seen the pattern and now I know. The least busy time is always one hour after I arrive. This latest visit was no exception. I know they accept appointments, but that only seems to save about 20 minutes, and I never seem to be able to get there when I expect anyway.

So I arrived and saw the three kilometer line snaking out the door. I'd blame this on The Curse of Riddick, but this was more or less normal for my blood drive visits. I walked in, signed in, and took the bundle of "required" reading papers the volunteers were handing out.

I took my seat and paged through the forms. Like most corporate forms, there's a document revision date printed in one of the corners. Every one of them is 2002 or older. I've read these, many times. I pretended to read, handed them back in, and lined up in the queue for the two month wait.

After forty minutes of musical chairs, one of the nurses finally took my vitals and went over the medical questionnaire. I showed her my blood donor card. She made an approving noise and told me to make sure I showed my card to the cookie lady at the end.

After another two months in yet another line, I finally got to a cot. And then we began our usual dance. The nurse looked at my arm and said, "My, what great veins you have!"

"Umm… thanks?"

"You should really be in one of the other chairs for the double red cell donation," she says.

"No thank you, I prefer a traditional donation."

"But why? It's so simple!"

"I'm comfortable with this donation. I know exactly how it's going to affect me and I can plan for that. And even your own handouts say the double donation will take twice as long. And I've already been here for an hour and a half."

"Oh, it's not that much longer."

"I prefer a traditional donation, thanks."

And at this point the nurse working the "other" chairs pipes up. "What's this? Why aren't you over here?"

"Because I don't want to be, dumbass. Now close your mouth and sit down. Oh, and pink scrubs make you look fat."

Ok, I didn't say that. Instead, I patiently explained again. "My" nurse made a sour face and continued her prep work. She jabbed me with that steel garden hose and we were off.

I've got this part down. I was finished in less time than it took to go through the medical questionnaire. Should I be alarmed that I "bleed out" so quickly? The nurse was putting on my band-aid when a supervisor type sauntered over.

"Finished already?" he says. "You should be in one of the other chairs."

GAH! "Hey, Baldy, I know I'm supposed to avoid strenuous activity, so try not to fight back when I'm beating your ass!"

Didn't say that. Wanted to. Said nothing. Hoped bald man would leave. Bald man stayed.

The bald man asked, "Do you know about the double red cell donation?"

GAH! Again! I explained, yet again. He looked disappointed as he wandered away. A moment later I was finished and off to the waiting area for cookies and cola. I showed my donor card to the cookie lady. She gave me a confused look. I explained that the one of the nurses told me to show her, but never explained why. This created a small flurry of consultation. Volunteers consulted nurses and each other. Nurses passed my card around until it found its way to the nurse who started the whole thing. She looked at the cookie lady and said simply, "Eighth donation." She handed back my card and went about her work.

The cookie lady brightened considerably and began rooting around in a plastic tub. A moment later she returned with my card, a certificate, and a lapel pin. This was my eighth donation. I'm now a member of the gallon club.

I had no idea there was a gallon club. But now I'm a member. And I have the "hey, my name is misspelled" certificate to prove it.

Lord of The Rings update: Yeah, remember the last time, when we were almost half way through Two Towers? We made it through another five minutes before she fell asleep. Five minutes, honest.

*Subtitle: Dude, seriously… this is your vacation?

I can't believe I forgot about this. There's a key part of the last post that I completely forgot. About a month before our vacation, Girlfriend said something like "Since we'll have all that time, I should finally get around to watching Lord of The Rings with you." I couldn't believe she'd said that.

I'd tried unsuccessfully to get her to go with me to the theater when the movies were new. When the first movie came out, she said she didn't want to wait years for the rest of the story. And when the other two movies came out, she didn't want to see them because she hadn't seen the first. Once I had all three DVDs, I tried several times to get her to watch them with me. Like a trooper, she tried to tough it out once or twice, but never seemed to stay awake past the first half hour. Sitting on the couch knowing that a gigantic fantasy epic lay before her turns out to be a powerful sleep aid.

But anyway, we agreed we'd watch it on our vacation. She promptly forgot about this conversation, but I did not. Don't get me wrong, I'm not a Lord of The Rings nut, but it is a damn good movie, and I knew she'd like it if she'd gave it the chance.

That first Sunday night of our vacation was when we began the great movie odyssey of 2005. We made it through about two-thirds of the first movie. Pretty impressive, given that she'd never made it past the first half hour before.

**********

Monday morning involved a whole lot more nothing. As this rate, I just might break the record for least amount of calories burned over a ten day period. Somebody call Guinness.

Monday afternoon we went out for lunch and then went to get haircuts for me and The Kid. (The excitement is overwhelming, isn't it?) The Kid was just about to start school, so we figured this would be a perfect time to tame that unruly mop of his. Since he's still not on speaking terms with Messrs. Brush and Comb, the only real solution is to keep his hair short.

Plus, I wanted a new haircut so I looked my best for my next adventure… the Department of Motor Vehicles! (I know, my life is so much more fabulous than yours!) I dropped Girlfriend and The Kid off at home and went to the DMV office to renew my soon-to-expire driver's license.

It's been seven years since my last license renewal, so they were at a brand new office now. The place is huge compared to the old one, which now sits abandoned on the other end of the parking lot. There were a few dozen cars parked outside, but I wasn't concerned. After all, this place was huge. They've got to have way more service windows than the two they had at the old place, right?

Right! I walked in to find a glorious six service windows. Two of them were actually staffed. And the entire population of a small city was waiting in line. I swear, the place looked like a refugee camp. There was a family cooking over a camp stove in the corner. People were building shanties out of DMV brochures. There was a sign over the wastebasket reading "No diapers in this trash receptacle." The quiet implication was "If you've brought small children, you'll be changing them five times while you're here."

Right inside the door was a large sign advising me to take a number. I took the little arrow-shaped scrap of paper. My number was 89. The little sign on the wall gleefully proclaimed "Now serving: 46."

Fuuuuucckk. I sure was glad I took the time to fill out the paperwork at home, so I'd be ready for instant service when I got there. I looked around for a seat. Naturally, there were none. Cue the heavy sigh.

I didn't really have a place in line, and I did have my number, so I went back to the car. I dug around behind the seats until I found my prize: a pair of headphones. I rarely go anywhere without my pda, so now I had music to pass the time. I went back inside to find the happy little sign still reading "Now serving: 46."

I stood against the wall to wait. My nostrils filled with the scent of the refugees cooking fires. (Was that a cat on their spit?). The minutes ticked by in slow motion. 47. 48. 49. 48. 47. That's not a typo. The number occasionally went backwards, just to spite me.

I did the math in my head. "They've been open since 8 a.m. It's now 2 p.m. They've served 46 people today. That's six hours to get half way to my number. They close at 5 p.m., and they should be getting to my number at about 8 p.m. Fuuuuucckk."

I was going to be standing in this cramped, hot office for the rest of my vacation. And the only thing worse than waiting in a crowded DMV office is standing and waiting in a crowded DMV office. I needed one of those seats. Needed one.

50. 51. 52. Slowly, a plan formed. 53. 54. 55. I was standing next to a row of chairs. I looked down at the man on my right. 56. He was sitting with his arms folded. 57. In his hand was his paperwork and his number: 66. I grinned. I had my idea.

I took the pda from my belt and sifted through my available songs. 58. I selected a song. 59. I began to sing, quietly at first, then a little louder. 60. I started to dance. 61. Everyone was watching. 62. Keep in mind, I'm very white. What I call "dancing," other people often call "seizures." 63. I looked down at Mr. 66, a thin balding man in his 50s who was trying very hard to not look at me. I serenaded him with my sweet rendition of 50 Cent's "In Da Club." "My flow, my show brought me the dough, that bought me all my fancy things…" I turned around and did a little booty shake just for him.

Then I turned back and asked, "Can I have your seat?" He jumped up like he was sitting on a spring. Heh. Perfect. 64. I had my seat, and Mr. 66 would only have to stand for a few minutes.

I sat down triumphantly. I could not contain my grin. The young woman to my right said something to me. I couldn't hear her over my music, but she had a sour look on her face. I turned up my volume just a bit. "I'm sorry, I can't hear you." She frowned and said something else. "What? The music's too loud, I can't hear you." She frowned again, almost a comically large expression.

She grabbed her purse from between her feet and got up. She walked across the room… and sat in one of the dozen or so empty seats on the other side of the brochure rack. D'oh!

I glanced up at the happy little counter (Now serving: 65) and then buried myself in an eBook while pretending I was the only one in the room. Make an ass of myself? No, what are you talking about? I'd never do that. Everyone staring at me? No, of course not. I'm just sitting here reading a novel, waiting quietly.

I retreated into my own little world, glancing up at the happy little now serving sign occasionally. When my time neared, I turned off my music and waited quietly. Finally my number was called and I bolted up to the counter. I waited about two hours and was finished in about three minutes. My form was filled out correctly, I knew the fee and had exact change, and I flew through the cursory eye exam.

I had to wait for a few minutes to get a new photo, but I was still out less than ten minutes after my number was called. The only downside was that dreadful photo. I have short hair, but the light in the photo booth is up high. My new license photo shows the shadows of my ears and makes me look like I have a mullet.

<sigh /> I'm stuck with a mullet picture until 2012. The Curse of Riddick strikes again. At least he left my crotch alone today.

Lord of The Rings update: Monday night we finished Fellowship and made it almost half way through Towers. She actually reached the point where she started getting interested in the story. But when I started disk one of Towers she noticed the menu and asked, "Does that say 'Extended Edition?' If there's a shorter version, why in God's name aren't we watching that??"

*Subtitle: I know, my life is so much more fabulous than yours!

Sunday was a perfectly boring day. We slept as late as a five year old child would allow, then spent vast amounts of time doing as little as possible. Which is a stark contrast to my previous two chapters, I know. But we were completely and totally unmotivated. We made vague plans for later in the week, but mostly we had a real "Sunday morning lazy" kind of thing happening. Which very quickly turned into a "Sunday afternoon lazy" kind of thing.

We tried to pass the time with simple, homebound pursuits. Like, say, napping on the couch. But The Kid's boundless energy would not be subdued so easily. Eventually he was able to drag us out of the house by the hems of our shirts and we found ourselves at the playground, skateboards in hand.

We passed on the skate park this time. With its ramps and rails, the skate park is mostly for those who already know how to skate. Instead, we chose the wide open paved spaces of the basketball courts at the elementary school around the corner.

The Kid tired of skating almost immediately and left Girlfriend and I to practice while he romped on the playground equipment. We're both starting to get pretty good. And by "pretty good" I mean "we can almost go in a straight line without falling off."

We zipped back and forth, practicing our turning and our balance. Girlfriend has a distinct advantage over me with both of these. She doesn't have her own board, so she uses The Kid's nice skate shop board. I still use my crappy ten dollar Wal-Mart board. There's more of a difference than you might think. When I use the expensive board, my skills improve instantly and dramatically.

After putzing around for an hour or so, Girlfriend got a little bored and went to play with The Kid. I had the nice board all to myself for a while. I was feeling a little confident, so I decided to practice sharper turns. Big mistake.

I should have remembered that the curse of The Chronicles of Riddick was still in effect. See, the problem here is that I haven't yet purchased any pads. I'd prefer to have a helmet, elbow pads, knee pads, wrist guards, and a nut cup. And a bullet proof vest. But no… never got around to buying all that. I have only a helmet.

My natural inclination is of course to not fall. And that's amplified quite a bit by the fact that my shorts and tshirt will offer no protection. Oh, and I'm zooming around rather quickly. Maybe you can see where this is going.

So I was practicing turning when I suddenly lost balance. I didn't fall, but I came pretty close. Falling might have been preferable. No, I lost balance and steadied myself by planting one foot on the pavement. The other foot was planted firmly on that non-slip sandpaperish coating on the skateboard.

And I did the splits. Not just any split. I did a rolling split. My left foot was stuck to the board, which was still moving. So when my feet were as far apart as they could go, the momentum of the board began to drag me. This must've looked wicked funny, because Girlfriend laughed like it was the funniest thing she'd seen in a year. Or at least the funniest thing that didn't involve Ben Stiller.

I found it considerably less entertaining. That tearing muscle sensation in my groin kind of got me down. Don't get me wrong, I pull my groin all the time. But my way is usually a lot more pleasant.

I'm pretty sure that damn movie is to blame. I curse you Riddick! It's all your fault.