Happy 100!!!

It's been a year and a half since I started blogging and today, Wednesday, October 21, 2009, I celebrate my 100th post!!! I feel like there should be a cake somewhere....perhaps I'll find one.

Nope, just some goldfish crackers and string cheese.

I don't have anything special planned for this post. I actually didn't think that it would come so early, but I didn't want to miss it. You know, it's like when your car reaches an nice, big, round mileage number, like 40,000. You don't want to miss that. Of course, I missed mine. I remember looking down and seeing 40,029 and I thought it was like a bunch of little 29's giving me the finger. Once again, life takes a big dump on me. Oh well.

So anyway, it's my 100th post and something happened to me today that made me think it would be great blog material. It's this weird phenomenon that happens in the south (and perhaps all over the US.) This phenomenon is called "Now That You Have A Baby, You Are Interested In Everyone's Baby." Let me first give you the story.

When I was single and without child, people didn't seem to bother me with showing me pictures of their grandkids, talking about their new babies, etc. But once I got married and we had Celie - BAM - you are the recipient of all things "new baby."

Just today, I was in the mail room busily loading up a dolly with box after box of collateral that was shipped to me.

I would like to sidebar and tell you how horrible it is to do anything with a dolly at my office because my office is on, what I affectionately refer to as, "the Loft." It's on the 1 1/2 floor. You cannot access it by elevator. Nope. Just 24 (or 93, I can't remember) solid marble steps. Dollie + 24 marble steps + Matthew as the operator of dolly = DISASTER.

And in walks a co-worker. This is a co-worker I've blogged about before, but I can't remember what I called her in the blog and I'm far too lazy to go back and dig through NINETY NINE other posts to link it here, but she's the lady who reacts to everything as if a total and complete disaster has occurred. She walks in the mail room where I was and she was holding a very new baby. She said, "Matthew, would you like to see my new grandbaby??"

I mean, I really wanted to say no, but that would have been rude.

Matthew (holding a 32 pound box of privacy policies), "aww, how old?"

Co-worker: "Two weeks."

Matthew: "Great."

(awkward silence and staring.)

Co-worker: "Ok, well, I can see you're busy...."

Matthew: "uh huh."

I don't know her grandbaby. I just "know" her daughter. I don't have a relationship with her. Never have. Never will. So as I stand there staring at a baby I'll never see unless we happen to be in the Piggly Wiggly together, and even then I won't stop to chit-chat, all I can say in my head is:

"wow, Celie was so much cuter than her."

I'm pretty sure that is very un-Christian of me and I will confess that sin now, but really, I don't care about random people's babies just because I have one now. I get all the pictures sent through email of all my co-workers new grandchildren.

And I don't care about them.

I get to hear all the stories about so and so's niece who just had a baby and their birth story is then compared to my child's.

And I don't care about them.

I mean, just because I have a baby, doesn't make me madly in love with all babies. In fact, I barely like other babies. I barely like children - period. So, fast forward 15 minutes and I'm up in my office after practically killing myself getting up the stairs with dolly-o-crap and co-worker walks in.

Co-worker. "Just thought you would want to see her again before she left."

(really? Did you really think that? Because I can assure you, you. were. wrong.)

Matthew, "wow, ok. I know you're having fun with her." (But really I know she's not because the baby is two weeks old and literally they sleep 22 hours of the day and there's really nothing you can do except freak out, panic and hope that: they don't suffocate on their rock-hard mattress, they don't contract h1n1, they don't secretly have autism, you can keep the cradle cap at bay, you don't dry heave while looking at their belly button thingy and wonder if their poop should really be that color.)

Co-worker, "Yes, we're just having a ball."

- And I knew this was coming -

Co-worker, "So when are ya'll having another one????"

Matthew, "We're not. We're actually thinking about selling Celie to buy a new Honda Accord. Wouldn't that be awesome? Accords are so reliable."

Co-worker, "Well, I can see that you're busy."

(awkward silence and staring.)

sigh.

And for those of you who gasped when I said I would sell Celie for a Honda Accord.....I was OBVIOUSLY kidding.

I'd at least have to get a Lexus.

Happy 100th post to me!

Why Is It?

That I have difficulty with the past-tense of the phrase, “blow-dry?” Is it, blown-dry or blow-dried?

That I can be in a dead sleep at 3:00 AM, need to get up to use the restroom, stumble into the restroom hitting every wall and piece of furniture on the way, and yet, when the alarm goes off at 5:55 AM I can hit the snooze button with the accuracy and precision of an Olympic archer?

That the phrase “I know, right?” has become so popular? What’s the real meaning here? Are you hoping the person to whom you’ve just said this is going to affirm your preexisting knowledge of what was just said? I’m so confused now.

That it doesn’t matter what or how much I eat for breakfast, by 10:00 AM, I want to kill someone I’m so hungry?

That Sundays are so exhausting?

That twenty percent of the people do eighty percent of the work?

That I hate flossing so much? I mean, every time that little piece of string shoots through my teeth and hits that little gum flap I practically faint.

That I’ve seen not one, but two Bill Cosby sweaters today? You know the ones……

That people still text while they’re driving even though that crazy video of those British kids has been circulating on YouTube for all of 2009?

That I feel like I need to celebrate my 100^th blog post? Perhaps it’s really that I feel like all my regular readers (not the ones really looking for a recipe for actual seven minute icing by googleing it and just “happen” upon my blog) need to send me presents for my 100^th blog post. Which is just in a matter of a few posts…..like two or three. Which would be a total of five presents. Whatever.

That my wife doesn’t like to eat lunch in places “where she will smell like the restaurant afterward,” but will eat at the Mexican restaurant: every. single. day?

That the reaction of receiving a bad hair cut is similar to the reaction of hearing your five, brand new, sixteen week-old puppies were just eaten by an alligator? As is the grieving period. Granted, I’ve never experienced the “puppy and alligator” issue, but there was this one time in eighth grade when I had a head full of thick, full, black “Zack Morris” hair (in a bowl cut, thank you very much) and the lady took clippers to my head and cut it all off. I was so upset that I jumped into my pool with all my clothes on when I got home. I was obviously not very dramatic as a pre-teen.

That I could eat Lettuce Wraps from P.F. Chang everyday of my adult life?

That even though my office has been away from the restroom for over a year, the public poopers of my building have somehow placed a “house arrest” tracking device on my body and know when I’m going in to use it? I mean, I understand that you are comfortable with your public restroom use, but I am not, so please wait until I finish going number one before you begin your toilet firework display.

You're welcome for that last one.