The real origin of Valentine's Day--hint, look at its initials

And it’s that oh-so-wonderful day of the year when I want to punch most people I see in the face.

No, I don’t mean every day that ends in “y” (am I really that cranky that often? Geez… I might need anger management!). I am, of course, referring to Valentine’s Day.

I know, I know, surprise, surprise, the single girl who’s probably going to die alone with seventeen cats (which is truly a fate worse than death, because as anyone who knows me knows, I REALLY hate cats) hates Valentine’s Day. But I’m about to break girl code here and let you guys in on a secret: most girls hate Valentine’s Day even more than you do.

Before I explain, I do want to point out that there are two major groups of girls who are exceptions to this rule. The first group is easy to spot because they have WAY too many stuffed animals in their bedroom. They also have an abnormal attachment to the color pink and have at least one picture of a kitten on their wall. And they’re over the age of six. If you find yourself dating one of these girls, you’d better go all out for Valentine’s Day.

Like seriously, flowers, giant stuffed bears, candy, jewelry, engagement rings, a yacht ready to take you to a Greek isle, etc. Even if you’ve only been dating for a week. Anything less than this will result in a temper tantrum that would make the apocalypse seem minor. But I have no sympathy for you in this case. Because you ignored the warning signs and CHOSE to date this girl in February. You made your own pink, stuffed-animal lined bed. Now enjoy the suffering that Valentine’s Day entails for you. And just think, you get to do it all over again in 364 days.

The second group of girls who love Valentine’s Day are the girls who are in a relationship but have primarily single friends. The reason that these girls love Valentine’s Day so much is the same reason why they torture their friends with ridiculous hazing activities as soon as they are engaged and pick seventeen of their closest friends to be their bridesmaids. It’s because 364 days of the year, they’re jealous of their single friends who can come and go as they please and don’t have to deal with you leaving the toilet seat up. So when they find one day (or two, if it’s a year when they’re getting married) to feel superior, they love it. So if you’re with one of these girls, you’re expected to treat her as if she were the pink/stuffed-animal/kitten loving type of girl, or else face the consequences.

You’ve been warned.

The majority of us, however, recognize that it’s pointless.

That being said, if you’re in a relationship, you’re still expected to make a tremendously flashy show of how much you love us. Not because we need that reassurance. But because we’re hugely competitive and if Suzy from the cubicle next to ours gets a better present than we did, she gets to lord it over us for the next year. And we do NOT want to let that happen. So just like diamonds and penis size (sorry—just being honest here!), when it comes to Valentine’s Day gifts, bigger is ALWAYS better.

But now that that’s out of the way, let’s take a moment to mock the holiday’s origin. According to Wikipedia, which, as we all know, is NEVER wrong, Valentine’s Day began in 1832 as a day on which all sexual partners were expected to be able to confess to any “delicate” diseases that they may have picked up without retribution. Hence the initials, VD. Which, for those of you born after 1980, is what people used to call STDs.

In fact, this is where Valentine’s Cards came from. Because some people didn’t want to flat out SAY, “I want you to know that you may now have Chlamydia.” So they tried to come up with clever and witty ways to warn their partners that they were probably now infected. That’s also why candy, flowers, and presents began to go with those cards, because it’s harder to get mad at the person who gave you syphilis if they also gave you flowers.

(Not really. I think I’d be just as mad. But in theory, I guess the presents could help. In theory.)

So it’s a little-known fact that the first “Roses are red, violets are blue” poem REALLY read, “Roses are red, violets are blue, a hooker gave me the clap, and now you have it too.”

The classic card that Ralph Wiggam gave Lisa Simpson saying, “I choo-choo-choose you,” originated as “I choo-choo-chose someone else first and wound up with crabs.”

Not quite as sweet, but far more informative.

Even William Shakespeare’s classic “Shall I compare thee to a summer’s day,” didn’t start as innocent as it wound up. He originally said, “Shall I compare thee to a summer’s day? After we fooled around, it burns when I pee.” (It’s true, ask Wikipedia!)

More modern sentiments of love came from these older Valentine confessional cards. Contrary to popular belief, 50 Cent took his “I love you like a fat kid loves cake,” from Emily Dickinson’s “I love you like a fat kid loves cake, but unlike you, cake never gave me herpes.”

So how did we get from confessing the diseases gathered from infidelity to the supposed most romantic day of the year?

Easy. A little company called Hallmark launched a massive cover-up conspiracy so all-inclusive that Amelia Earhart’s last flight, JFK’s assassination, the Roswell aliens, the extinction of the dinosaurs, and the disappearance of the Mayans are all a part of it.

I’d tell you more, but then Hallmark would have to kill me.

In fact, since I started writing this, Wikipedia’s Valentine’s Day entry has mysteriously changed to some made-up story about “Saint Valentine.” Right. Because THAT sounds real.

In summary, it’s a pointless holiday. But I’ll take flowers, candy, jewelry, shoes, or any other presents you’d like to give me any day of the year. Including today.

I found my hairbrush in the fridge--was it evil elves, Inception, or insomnia?

Yesterday morning, I couldn’t find my hairbrush.

I looked in all of the places that I could have logically set it down.

No luck.

I looked in all of the places where it could have fallen after I logically set it down.

Nothing.

I looked in Rosie’s crate and under my bed (where she likes to hide anything that interferes with my ability to devote all of my attention to her all of the time. My cell phone winds up in both locations frequently).

Still no hairbrush.

Finally, I gave up because I was running crazily late for school and keep a hairbrush in my car.

And then, of course, once I stopped looking, I found it.

In my refrigerator.

Yeah. That was a proud moment.

Now, your average person would be able to make one of three logical assumptions upon finding her hairbrush in the refrigerator.

Logical Assumption #1: Early onset dementia. Or, as we call it in my family, turning 35. But I’m not close to that age yet. And while I AM precocious in many ways, I still have the ability to work a dvd player, send an email, and drive a car without knocking off my side mirrors, so I think I can--for the time being--rule out that special hereditary gift that I’m eventually bound to inherit.

Logical Assumption #2: The elves that break into my apartment every night to cobble shoes and order pay-per-view movies on my account got drunk Wednesday night and thought it would be hilarious to put my hairbrush in the fridge and my bras in the microwave.

I do know that the elves were on the job Wednesday night, because all of my shoes were freshly cobbled and my cable bill is listing the movies, “Our Bodies, Our Elves,” “Snow White and the Seven Horny Elves,” “Harold and Kumelf go to the Keebler Factory,” “The Wizard of Elf,” and “Pretty Woman.” (Because as everyone knows, elves love elf porn. And Richard Gere movies.)

But none of my bras were missing, so I’m pretty sure the elves just did their normal cobbling/movie watching and then went on their merry way.

Logical Assumption #3: While I was asleep, dream terrorists entered my dream, planted the idea of my hairbrush in my refrigerator, started spinning a top, and made me very confused about whether Leonardo DiCaprio is awake or in limbo at the end of Inception. 

I can neither confirm nor refute this assumption, leaving you to wonder if I’m awake or asleep right now. Or maybe I don’t exist and YOU’RE asleep right now and someone just planted the idea of ME in your mind.

Except I know that Logical Assumption #3 is completely illogical in my case.

How?

Well, it’s actually simple. I know I wasn’t asleep. Because my body hates me and I’m an insomniac.

This isn’t anything new. I’ve been an insomniac since early childhood, when I used to get up in the middle of the night and sneak downstairs to watch tv because I couldn’t sleep (which is also, coincidentally, how I know that elves love elf porn and Richard Gere). Usually it’s just an inconvenience and means that I get less sleep than I’d like to. But sometimes I go a week or more on one or two hours of sleep a night.

Which is what happened this week.

And which is why I wasn’t all that surprised to find my hairbrush in the refrigerator.

Because when you aren’t getting any sleep, your brain basically pulls an alcoholic, snowed-in at a haunted hotel in the Rockies Jack Nicholson.

In fact, finding my hairbrush in the fridge was kind of a relief. At least I didn't write an entire novel using only the sentence “All work and no play makes Jack a dull boy,” chop down my bathroom door with an axe, try to murder my family, then freeze to death in a snowy hedge maze.

This time.

The last two weeks have pretty much sucked sleep-wise, but as my personal bouts of insomnia go, I’ve actually been fairly productive.

At least I think I have.

I keep getting brilliant ideas for my blog/next book/hair style/makeup line that I’m going to start someday/plan to take over the world within the next couple of years at about 3am. And because I know that when I’m in a bad cycle of insomnia, if I don’t write the ideas down, I’ll lose them forever, I keep a pen and notebook next to my bed to record these flashes of genius.

Unfortunately, the pen and notebook are missing and after checking the logical locations AND the refrigerator, I still can’t find them. So I’m forced to record my amazing bursts of insight using whatever tools I can find in the dark at 3am, which sometimes works fairly well and is sometimes rather disastrous.

Last night, for example, I came up with the title for the book I’m planning to put out this spring. I’d been trying for nearly a year to figure out the right title, and inspiration finally hit. So I grabbed my phone and typed the title and my plan for how to work it into the novel appropriately into a memo to myself.

Which was better than the night before, when I wound up scribbling ideas for future blog posts on my mirror in $24 Stila lipgloss. Fail.

It also worked out better than the time I had a sharpie but no paper and wrote my holiday shopping list on my leg. You get some really weird looks at the mall when you have to look down your pants to see what you need to buy.

I was actually really excited to have figured out what to call my book, and after typing it into my phone, I fell asleep for a couple of blissful hours.

The excitement ended this morning, however, when I tried to read what I’d typed and discovered that I apparently speak some language that’s a cross between English, Japanese, ancient Egyptian hieroglyphs, and whale mating calls. And I can only speak it between 3:04am and 3:22am. After that, it’s just plain gibberish.

Hopefully the insomnia spell will break soon and I’ll be able to resume my role as a semi-functional member of society. Until then, if you talk to me and I seem a bit odd, try to go easy on me. And if you run into me on the street and start talking about an underground boxing club that I started, don’t be surprised if I get really mad at you.

Because the number one rule of insomnia is that you do NOT talk about Fight Club.

Teaching teenagers what makes Gatsby so Great is a tough job. But it shouldn't be.

There are days when being an English teacher feels like the worst fate known to mankind.

Yesterday was one of those days. I was literally jealous of the guy who wears a chicken suit on Rockville Pike to advertise for a tire store (still haven’t figured out the connection on that one. But I kind of want to go check out the tire store just to see why their mascot is a tuxedo-wearing chicken. So maybe their ad campaign works after all). And when you’d rather be standing on a corner in a chicken suit in 30-degree weather, you know you’ve hit a low point in your career.

The problem? I’m teaching The Great Gatsby. Which I love. A lot. My copy looks like it’s been through the wars because I’ve read it so many times. The margins are covered in notes and half the lines are underlined or highlighted. And this is only my second year teaching it.

I was actually very excited to teach eleventh grade because I love The Great Gatsby so much. And A Streetcar Named Desire, which is also in the eleventh grade curriculum. I’d taught ninth grade for years, and was ready to scream if I had to deal with Romeo’s whining again. Like I was getting WAY too excited when he kills himself by the end. I still love To Kill a Mockingbird, but I was kind of rooting for George to hurry up and kill Lennie so Of Mice and Men could be over. Which meant that it was time for a change.

So I was looking forward to the opportunity to share one of my all-time favorite books with kids and instill that same love of F. Scott Fitzgerald’s masterpiece that I have in their young, impressionable minds.

Except they hate it. Like the way I hate the Cowboys, Delaware, and people who ride their bikes into oncoming traffic.

Okay, that’s misleading. The ones who are actually READING it hate it. But they’re in the minority. Because a huge percentage of them admitted yesterday to not even having read the SparkNotes, let alone the book itself. And I teach honors classes.

I don’t understand that. Granted, I’ve had my nose in a book for as long as I can remember. And I keep reminding myself of Nick’s father’s advice to remember that others haven’t had the same advantages that I've had (namely, in this case, parents who instilled a love of reading in me from early childhood). But to be honest, I prefer my favorite literary characters over most of the real people I know. No offense, but if I had to choose between Rhett Butler or Mr. Darcy and you, you’d probably lose.

Then again, I have a theory that the best men in all of history were written by women—I’m starting to feel like there’s no one out there who can live up to the men that Margaret Mitchell, Jane Austen, and Charlaine Harris have created. Yes, I’m lumping the author of the Sookie Stackhouse books along with those literary giants. Because I love Eric Northman. I’d marry that fictional vampire in a heartbeat. Sorry Edward Cullen—I don’t like my fictional vampires all emo and sparkly.

This might be why I’m still single.

But I digress.

Back to Gatsby.

I had a college professor who said you needed to read The Great Gatsby every five years. Okay, that professor was the biggest tree-hugging hippie I’d ever seen, and I’m pretty sure he came to class high every week. And he taught film studies. And I think he lived in his mom’s basement. And he used to go off on hour-long rants about how Walt Disney was just as bad as Hitler. Actually, I wasn’t a big fan of that professor.

But he was right about Gatsby.

I describe my first novel as being about the quarter-life crisis. When you’re in your mid-twenties and are suddenly one of the “adults,” but aren’t quite ready for all of the social responsibilities that that title entails.

And that’s what Gatsby is about. Nick basically, at thirty, leaves home to go live at the beach for a summer, rather than marry the girl his family and friends all expect him to marry. He’s jaded, and he feels a disconnect with most of the people he meets. And he gets wrapped up in a party culture, of people who drink illegally to avoid reality and who think they’re immortal because they’re young and they don’t understand that the choices they make now are going to affect them for the rest of their lives.

How could any teenager NOT love that book?

One of my favorite parts is when Jordan Baker describes to Nick why she doesn’t have to be a good driver. She shrugs when he tells her she’s an awful driver after almost hitting a pedestrian, and she tells him that she doesn’t have to pay attention, because other people are good drivers and they’ll stay out of her way. Nick asks what will happen when she meets another bad driver, and her answer is merely that she hopes that doesn’t happen.

That attitude is why teenagers get into so many accidents. It’s why they think it’s okay to text and drive (okay, I’ll admit it, it’s why I still text and drive more than I should). It’s why they think they’ll be okay when they drive too fast. And it’s why the final tragedy of the book is inevitable. How different is that from all the little celebutantes like Paris Hilton and Lindsay Lohan driving when they’re smacked out of their minds?

It amazes me every time I read Gatsby that Fitzgerald so perfectly captured the emotions and logical fallacies that define my generation in a novel that was written nearly ninety years ago. And every time I read it, I’m both inspired to write more, and I’m a little discouraged because I know that I will never be able to so beautifully define the fragility and mistaken bravado of the human condition.

Hopefully the new movie version will help. I think Baz Luhrmann (of Romeo + Juliet and Moulin Rouge fame) will do an amazing job at capturing the wasteful opulence of the 1920s. And Leonardo DiCaprio will be great as Gatsby, not just because I love him (and I do. A lot), but because I think he’ll be able to portray that element of Gatsby’s character trying too hard to be someone that he’s not far better than Robert Redford did in the definitive movie version from 1974.

But a small part of me kind of hopes that the new movie isn’t THAT good. I mean, I want it to be great and do justice to this incredible book. But I don’t want teenagers to think that seeing the new movie is an acceptable substitute for reading the book.

Until it comes out, however, I’ll continue beating my head against the brick wall of teenagers who think they’ll live forever and who see reading as a waste of time. But I’ll keep trying because, as Fitzgerald put it, “we beat on, boats against the current, borne back ceaselessly into the past.”

F. Scott Fitzgerald may have never been a teacher, but that line alone tells me that at least one other person out there understood the feeling of futility that I’m experiencing right now. And the reason why I’ll keep trying and vainly hoping to instill my students with an appreciation for this amazing novel, even when it feels like I’m accomplishing nothing more lasting than Nick does when he erases the obscenity from Gatsby’s steps.

People who know me well, can you spot my house in this picture? Look carefully!

I'm addicted to snow--Punxatawney Phil better be wrong!

Last winter, I developed an addiction that I’ve spent the past year trying unsuccessfully to fight.

It’s actually a really big problem. It has managed to eclipse my shoe addiction, my shopping addiction, and my Bruce Springsteen addiction. The good news is that it is far cheaper than all of those addictions. But living in the DC area, this addiction is much more frustrating than even my love of the Redskins.

I’m addicted to snow.

No, that’s not a veiled drug reference or a new brand of shoes. I'm talking about actual frozen precipitation that falls from the sky and results in the cancellation of school.

I had forgotten just how addicting snow is. Because DC doesn’t get snow very often. Most winters, our precipitation comes in the form of rain, freezing rain, sleet, ice, hail, locusts, brimstone, frogs, and other general weather phenomenon that remind us that God is angry with us and plans to smite us soon.

Which is how you can tell that God (or whoever it is that controls the weather) is a Democrat. Washington DC only gets real snow storms in years when a Democrat is in office. Like last winter. We had snow in the winter of 1998-1999, in 1996, 1993, and 1979 (which was before my time). When Republicans are in office, the weather just punishes us.

Of course, if you don’t like snow, you could assume that it’s actually the other way around. But as a teacher, who gets paid to NOT go to school when it snows, trust me. I know of what I speak.

But last winter provided us with change that we could believe in. And it was glorious.

Well okay, walking Rosie in snow that was taller than her sucked. Although it was pretty funny when she’d sink all the way into it and just bark for me to come rescue her. But not being in school for those nine snow days was wonderful.

The problem is that last winter ruined me for all other forms of precipitation. And when we have a situation like we did this week, where literally the entire rest of the country gets snow and we get a lukewarm rain, I feel very angry and cheated.

Prior to last year, I never spent much time thinking about snow. Yes, it’d be nice when we got it. But it was in small quantities and only gave us a day or less off of school. If it was in the forecast, everyone shrugged it off. Even if the local weathermen said there was a 100 percent chance of snow, we paid about as much attention to it as we pay to the crazy guy on the corner who tells you that he’s wearing a foil hat because it keeps the government from being able to listen to his thoughts.

This year, that crazy guy seems a lot more plausible.

Which causes some major problems.

For example, if anyone even whispers the word “snow,” everyone immediately stops what they’re doing and checks their weather service of choice. Don’t believe me? Try it. Say the word “snow” in a crowded place. Everyone who hears you will immediately whip out their cell phones, ipads, laptops, divining rods, grandparents with arthritic joints, groundhogs, or any other variety of weather predicting equipment and begin comparing the percent chance of snow and the accumulation expectations from all of the different sources.

And if even one of those warning elements says there will be snow, it causes an immediate panicked riot that makes those Egyptians look like quitters as Washingtonians flock en masse like brain-starved zombies to buy as much milk and toilet paper as they can before any snow can fall.

I’ve never understood this. If weather.com, your grandpa, and your groundhog are predicting a quarter inch of snow, why do you need 970,863 rolls of toilet paper? Like do you think that they’re going to stop making it? Because I feel like toilet paper is going to be around for a long time.

I can almost understand the rush for milk. It seems stupid, because if you live around here, you’re just going to lose power as soon as more than three flurries fall from the sky, but you can, in theory, stick all that excess milk outside in the snow to prevent it from going bad while you spend the next month waiting for Pepco to get their acts together.

But despite the riots and the resulting world-wide shortages of milk and toilet paper, nothing makes me quite as happy as when Sue Palka, Bob Ryan, Doug Hill, a Ouija board, and a groundhog all agree that snow is heading our way.

Unless they say it’s coming on a weekend. In which case I hold the local meteorologists personally responsible for any disruption in my plans.

And unless they all say we’re going to get snow and then they’re all wrong, causing mass hysteria and milk and toilet paper shortages for no reason.

In fact, that may be what’s ACTUALLY going on in Egypt right now. I’m not saying it has nothing to do with the people wanting the freedom of a true democracy. I’m just saying that it doesn’t snow in Egypt all that often. I’d be pretty pissed too if I were living in a country where it didn’t snow and where the government cut off my internet access.

Not because I’d be using it to organize riots—because without internet, I can only rely on my grandpa and the groundhog to predict the weather. And that isn’t enough to accurately analyze the chances of having a snow day.

And trust me, Egypt. Put a Democrat in charge. It’ll snow. I mean, you’re pretty much the only place in the world OTHER than DC with documented evidence that random crap other than snow falls from the sky when God is mad.

And if you have a real democracy, no one will shut off your internet, granting you access to meteorologists around the world.

Everybody wins.

Unless you have Pepco. In which case, your internet won’t do you any good because you won’t have electricity for 97 percent of the year.

But that’s still a fair trade off if it means that you get snow days. Trust me. I’m a teacher.

What would Don Draper do? Scratch that, what would a NINJA do?

My parents recently discovered that the best way to watch television shows is to wait until they’re about six seasons in and then buy the first five seasons and watch them in a row without commercials.

Which also means that my parents are now shut-ins who haven’t left their house in six months except to forage for more complete seasons of Dexter, Mad Men, The Big Bang Theory, and Gossip Girl (don't ask. Trust me).

At first, I found this amusing. Then sad. Then amusing again. Then sadder. And then horrifying.

Because my parents tried to lure me into their shut-in, complete-seasons-of-television-watching lifestyle by offering me the dvds when they were done with them. And as they dangled free shows in front of me like a carrot in front of a horse, it dawned on me that this is how cults begin.

But I fell for it anyway, because free stuff is free stuff. And until my book takes off, I’m poor. In fact, because I buy so many pairs of shoes, I’m SO poor that I can’t even afford the whole word “poor.” I’m just po’. Which means that my shopping addiction has even cost me my ability to speak proper English. I’m three more pairs of shoes away from just being p’.

So primarily to keep myself from thinking about shopping, I started watching Dexter.

Three days later, I had seen every episode. Some of them twice.

Four days later, I was caught up to the current season of 30 Rock. (I’d never seen an episode before that. Too many shows are on Thursday nights to dvr them all, so I stuck with the ones I was already watching. Plus I used to have a life.  Now I have Liz Lemon.  It's a fair trade.)

And I’m now working my way through Mad Men.

However, I encountered a major problem.

My parents are ALSO working their way through Mad Men. And I’m caught up to where they are. And they don’t want to let me watch the third season before they do. Which is COMPLETELY unfair. I mean, yes, they paid for the dvds, but they’re not chronic insomniacs like I am and therefore waste precious hours that they could spend watching Mad Men sleeping. Which I think makes them fair-weather fans and therefore they should forfeit their right to the third season until I've watched it. And besides, what am I supposed to do when I can’t sleep if I can’t find out who Don Draper is going to be sleeping with in the next episode?

So I asked myself, what would Don Draper do in this situation?

Which wasn’t all that helpful. He’d steal someone’s identity, then lie for twenty years, and then cheat on his wife with someone new once a week, all while drinking an old fashioned, smoking a cigarette, and coming up with the perfect campaign for a new Sterling Cooper client.

That wasn’t going to get me any dvds.

So I asked myself, what would Betty Draper do?

That wasn’t very helpful either. I drank a lot of wine, chain smoked six packs of cigarettes, and tried to look the other way.  Then I snapped and broke a chair.

No dvds in that strategy.

What would Peggy do? Well she’d be really frumpy, then get really fat, then turn out to be pregnant and not tell anyone for two years.

No thanks.

Joan would work her feminine wiles, but I’m 100 percent sure that that wouldn’t work on my PARENTS. And it’d be beyond icky if it did.

So even Joan failed me.

Then I wised up and realized that acting like a character from Mad Men wasn’t going to get me any closer to season three.

So I asked myself, what would a ninja do?

Jackpot.

I spent the next three days learning martial arts on demand (seriously, they have EVERYTHING on demand these days. I took a break from my training montage and learned how to make crème brulee, change a tire, and churn Amish-style butter, all courtesy of on demand programming). Then I dressed in all black, painted my face black, dyed Rosie’s fur black, and snuck over to my parents’ house in the dead of night.

Once there, I climbed up onto the roof and lowered myself down the chimney Mission Impossible style to steal the dvds.

Maybe I should have just let myself in the front door. I mean, I do have a key. Or maybe I shouldn’t have brought the Mission Impossible theme music with me. Or it could have been because I brought Rosie and apparently schnauzers don’t like being dyed black then lowered down a chimney in the middle of the night, even when they're highly trained ninja schnauzers.

But whatever it was that I screwed up, somehow my parents figured out that they were being robbed, which resulted in my dad chasing me through the house in his underwear with a baseball bat until he realized that it was me. Not a pretty sight.

Of course, when he realized that it was me coming to steal the third season of Mad Men, he woke my mom up, she grabbed an axe, and then they BOTH chased me while brandishing weapons.

And as I learned the hard way, apparently learning to be a ninja from on demand television does NOT actually prepare you for combat with deadly weapon-wielding parents who are defending a complete season of Mad Men.

My parents won that round.

But I didn’t give up. Oh no. I’m no quitter.

They thought it was the snow last week that knocked out their electricity. I’m not saying that I went over there with a pair of wire cutters. I’m just not saying that I DIDN’T go over there with a pair of wire cutters.

No, not really.  I had nothing to do with the epic failure that is Pepco.  They managed that all on their own.

What really happened is my dad went out of town and my mom wasn’t going to watch the third season without him, so I convinced her to let me borrow it on the condition that I return it by the time my dad comes home.

Which means if I don’t get through another two discs by tomorrow night, my parents are going to launch an attack that’s going to make the situation in Egypt right now look mild. We’re talking cutting off the whole country's internet, looting, extreme political unrest, the works. 

Hell, they'll probably make the biblical problems in Egypt look mild, complete with rivers turning to blood, locusts, frogs, cattle disease, slaying of the first born, and (horror of all horrors) the destruction of my entire shoe collection.

In other words, I’m potentially endangering the free world by taking a break from watching Mad Men to write this. See how dedicated I am to you? Feel special.

And I get to go through this all again when season four comes out on dvd.  Which leaves me a few months to perfect my ninja skills.  This time, I WILL defeat my parents in the epic battle.  But until then, it's back to Mad Men. 

Shh.  It's starting.