I Wouldn't Say I'm A "Proud" Owner, Though

I am now officially the owner of a 1993 Acura Legend. I went to the courthouse again today and laid out my seven documents in a row (seriously, seven of them). And the lady behind the counter said, "Wow, you came prepared!" She, of course, had no idea that this was my fifth time coming through the line in the last few weeks. If I have five tries to get something right, I think I'll always be prepared by the last try. Anyway, I walked out of there as the official owner of my car. And I celebrated by getting a flat tire on the way home.

But I didn't let that damper my mood.  In fact, I'm so used to changing flat tires (I've done it about 12 times now) that I got the spare on in less than 10 minutes. I felt like a member of a pit crew. Then I went inside with my hands all grimy and my shirt covered in grease and wrestled a grizzly bear while growing a beard and chugging a Mountain Dew. Very manly stuff.

But really, I went to Target and the grocery store with my family and did Christmas shopping and picked out fresh produce. Equally as manly, but not as obviously so.

Traffic Court Is Nerve-Racking (Or Nerve-Wracking)

I think I know what it feels like to quit smoking. Because I have the jitters, and my stomach hurts, and I'm nervous. So if you want to know what it feels like, drink an energy drink with breakfast, an espresso with lunch, and then plan on going to the court house in the afternoon. I'm nervous because I'm afraid I won't get through the line at the courthouse. And I'm jittery from the caffeine. Anyway, it's a weird feeling.

And it made me look like an idiot during my meeting today. I couldn't get a sentence out because I was trying to talk so fast. It sounded like I was interrupting myself to say what I was already saying.

Speaking of interrupting myself, I have to cut the post short today. It's time to go to court.

Relax, It's Just Air

I found out recently that not everyone can make themselves burp. It's a simple thing if you know how to do it. You just swallow a little bit of air and then pull it back up before it makes it to your stomach. I didn't realize that people couldn't do that. I just assumed that most people chose not to do it because it's gross. But as gross a talent as self-induced burping is, it's quite useful at times. In fact, I'll go ahead and give you two scenarios where it's very helpful.

The first scenario is when you feel a burp in your chest that just won't come out. It's that one where you duck your chin to your chest and then stretch your neck to try to coax it out, but it just sits there like a lump of air that's caught next to your heart. Those of us blessed with the gift of self-induced burping can swallow air and send it down to the trapped air. Then they fuse together and shoot back up your esophagus. I call this one the "rescue burp" because it acts just like a rescue worker when someone is trapped in a well or a collapsed building.

The more impressive scenario is when you want to really gross out your wife. This one has a more personal meaning to me because I've employed it for great use in the past. What I'll do is start off by complaining about some stomach pain. And I'll tell my wife that I don't feel so good. And I'll start to get up from my seat and say, "Oh no." And then, right as I get up, I'll turn my head and release a giant self-induced burp that shakes the walls. But I'll also add a little groan to it. The resulting effect is a very realistic vomiting sound. It's quite convincing (my wife usually tries to jump out of the way of the impending splatter). It's only funny for a few moments though, because it's always followed by a nice little fight about pranking people and how mean it is to do that to one's spouse.

The Most Wonderful Time Of The Year

Tomorrow is our company holiday party. We're closing the office 6 hours early so we can all go to a high-scale Italian restaurant downtown. And then we get to go home after we eat. So I'm looking at a half-day tomorrow with a free/awesome lunch, and then I'll be home by 2:30 in the afternoon! I've been waiting all week for this.

And from the rumors that have been floating around, the boss insists that everyone order dessert and have coffee afterwards. So now it's a toss-up as to what I'm most excited about. Free fancy food, half of a work day, and required dessert consumption. I really love Christmas-time.

Speaking of the holidays, I feel like we're losing the month of December too quickly. I haven't had egg nog once. And I've only listened to Christmas music on four or five occasions. And I haven't watched Elf yet. But it's already December 9th! I better kick it up a notch. I think tomorrow during my completely free afternoon, I'll put on a green and red sweater and listen to Jingle Bells over and over while drinking egg nog and watching Elf ("What's a Christmasgram?! I want one!")

One Less Thing To Worry About

I had to defriend my first person on Facebook. It was my little sister. But I had good reasons. For starters, she updated her status about 6 gajillion times a day. And it was never anything interesting. It was always "doing dishes" or "why does this always happen to me" or "can't WAIT". And I know I can take that stuff off of my news feed, but that wasn't all. She also liked to make electronic holiday posters and tag all of her friends in it. So I would see a notification saying I'd been tagged in her photo. Then I'd go to the photo, and it would be a WordArt drawing of "Happy Holidays" and it would have 435 people tagged in it.

And it felt really good to defriend her. It was like taking out the trash after it's started to stink. Or like sitting down after being on your feet for a long time. It was such a relief. I think I might find more people to defriend. It's very freeing.