It's beginning to look a lot like Christmas

So when I participate in my daily afternoon ritual of a Diet Coke from the vending machine, I usually anticipate some sort of surprise: a cockroach, an encounter with my ex-boyfriend in the hallway, being run over by a runaway radial, etc. But today my unwelcome surprise occurred when I put the money in the vending machine and out came: a Christmas can of Diet Coke, complete with happy polar bears sending a note to Santa. Now, despite how irritated I get, I understand that some retailers need to remind people that Christmas is coming before Halloween. Although it makes me want to go into a tinsel-induced-frenzy, I get that malls and other department stores need to get people in the holiday mood early so that they will buy things and boost their pre-holiday profit margin. However:
COKE.
IS.
NOT.
ONE.
OF.
THESE.
COMPANIES!
People do not need to associate Diet Coke with the holidays in order to buy Diet Coke. It's not like people are in the grocery store and they see the polar bears and think to themselves "Aw, how cute, the polar bears are celebrating Christmas, I think I'll buy a 72 pack of Diet Coke in November in the spirit of a holiday that is still over a month away."
Grr-argh. I may have to stick with Diet Dr. Pepper until February....unless Coke has special Easter cans.....do you think a crucifixion on a can is too much?

Vote or die, or not

So today was election day. I usually enjoy election day; there is a sort of electricity in the air as people exercise their rights in the democratic fashion. Today, the feeling was less electric than it was "on-the-lookout-waiting-for-someone-to-commit-voter-fraud-without-having-any-reasonable-cause-for-concern" tension.

As previously noted, my family and I recently moved, so we had to switch voting districts. We all did so in a timely fashion, and so voting should not have been a problem. If I were telling this story outloud, the "should" in the preceding sentence would have been accompanied by a raising of the eyebrows and possibly a lean forward for emphasis on what was expected. However, the people (and lets face it, we could probably call them geriatrics or octegenarians or really, really, old folks) who facilitate the voting process are like the Barney Fife of the Board of Elections. For those of you not familiar with the Andy Griffith's deputy, his gun was not loaded and he was only allowed to carry a bullet in his pocket, because he was so eager to arrest and shoot people. The polling place workers have obviously been trained to within an inch of their lives to be on the lookout for fraud, and by golly they were going to find it. When my father presented his driver's license, which still has the old address on it, the woman wanted additional proof that he lived in the new district. This he did not have, and a small skirmish insued. But the real battle was waiting in line behind my father.

When I got up to the table, the woman asked for my driver's license, which has the new address on it. She complimented me several times on how it was good of me to have my new address while she signed me in as my mother, who is in fact right above me on the list of eligible voters but who also happened to have already voted by absentee ballot. So when it came time for me to sign in, I of course signed in as myself. When she read the signature she said "Wait....why didn't you sign your real name? Who are you?" The error was then discovered, but rather than shift the blame on the incompetent numbnut nearsighted old cow, they decided to accuse me of "shenanigans". After a few more minutes and a little yelling, I was finally allowed to vote, but I am absolutely certain that one of the old bats "accidentally" shredded my ballot for use as kitty litter.

"I, state your name....."

So the State of Ohio decided I was fit to practice law. Since last week, I have been looking over my shoulder for a guy in a black robe and barristers wig who will tell me that, sorry, they changed their mind, I am not allowed to be an attorney, and that I should look for work in the food service industry or human resources.

I had a dream to that effect the night before I was sworn in. I was walking through a courtroom and was approaching the little swinging gate between the gallery and the space in front of the bench. I put my hand on the gate to push it open and it was stuck. Then I looked up and the judge from Ghostbusters II was there and he said something about having me “BURNED AT THE STAKE” and Peter MacNicol and the evil guy with the really big head escorted me out of the courtroom and out of the building and then when I looked back it was covered in pink goo. Besides infringing on any number of copyrights, I was convinced that this meant I was not going to get my license.

When we took our oath, I made sure I clearly annunciated every word, just to make sure it “took” on the first try.

Oh, and how is it that I can go through three years of law school and not know that Joe's middle name is Cosmo??