I’ve been so preoccupied with work lately that I haven’t had the steam left at the end of the day to produce the kind of low-quality drivel you’ve come to expect when you visit this blog, and for that you have my sincere apologies. This preoccupation also wakes me up at four in the morning most days, so you’d think that, after making coffee, I could dash off a few words before hitting the showers and heading downtown to apply my nose to the grindstone once again – and that is, in fact, what I’ve chosen to do this morning.

Yesterday morning, I tried to order a cell phone from Virgin Mobile, the company I bought my last cell phone from, which died several weeks ago (the phone, not the company) and I haven’t gotten around to replacing yet. I hate shopping and will put it off until the fridge is empty, clothes are falling off my body or I’m otherwise unable to function. My Darling B is exactly the same way. She’s wearing shirts that she’s owned since the Reagan administration. (Yeah, that long ago. The good old days.) Anyway, buying a cell phone ate up an hour of my time and got me nothing. Literally nothing. I spent about a half-hour reviewing the phones I liked, narrowed it down to two and chose one based on the size of the screen. Then I spent another half-hour trying to log in to the company’s web site. Couldn’t figure out what it wanted from me. I punched in my phone number and my PIN and ended up at a screen that said, “D’oh!” I shit you not, that’s what a major international corporation has on its oops page. It said some other crap, too, like “We’re sorry, but you’re stupid,” so I did what everybody does: I backed up and tried again, keying each letter and number very deliberately this time. “D’oh!” again. Not wanting to be locked out, I tried the “Forgot your password?” option and got absolutely nowhere with that. Besides punching in my phone number, I have to answer a security question to confirm my identity. It was my mother’s maiden name but didn’t work even though I’m pretty sure I know what my mother’s maiden name is. I even googled it, just to make sure. There were a couple other options for security questions, so I tried giving it my pet’s name, my favorite teacher’s name and the name of the first person I kissed (the Tooth Fairy, in case you’re wondering). Nope, nope and nope. It was almost more stressful than work, so I gave up and read web comics instead.

Tuesday morning, I read about pox parties. Have you heard about these? I guess they used to be common back before humanity learned about germs and viruses and developed vaccines against them. The idea seemed to be that, when your kid caught the pox or the measles or whatever, you invited all the neighborhood kids over so they’d all get sick at the same time. Other than getting out of school for a week or two, I don’t exactly understand what good that did, by which I mean, what’s the difference between getting the measles on purpose and getting the measles by accident? But apparently the reason most often given for pox parties these days is that it conveys “natural immunity” to your kid. Again, I’m at a loss to explain the difference between purposely exposing children to a full-strength pathogen, or letting them catch the disease fortuitously, as it were. It seems to me that letting them pick up measles whenever would be the mostnatural thing you could do, and of course we all know the most natural way is the best way. Also, the idea of “natural immunity” as a good thing perplexes me a bit. Exposing your kids to smallpox would give them “natural immunity” if they’re lucky enough to survive the infection.

Out of coffee. Have to pee. Ta for now.