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Actual sentence said to me at Thanksgiving: "Do you want to be included in the couples' gift exchange?" Why... am I a couple now? Oh no, that's right, I'm the only one of the six siblings not part of a couple. Of course I said yes, because otherwise on Christmas I will have fewer significant others and fewer presents than everyone else.

So now I have fewer than thirty days to get a boyfriend and proceed to convince him that it's not too soon to meet my family. This should be a piece of cake.

On the other hand, if I participate in the couples' gift exchange as a single, I don't have to share my present... win-win.

Severe sleep deprivation + PMS = just stay in a padded room

Being sleep-deprived is like being drunk and hungover at the same time. I am probably not okay to drive and I have a terrible headache. Then add PMS into the mix and I am really a danger to myself and society.

Why is sleep so hard...

It's kind of hard to concentrate after getting shot to death.

My workplace's idea of a scary Halloween celebration was to have a "violent actor" training while in costume. I decided against strapping a weapon to my pirate thigh on this particular day.

This was no earthquake drill -- we spent almost two and a half hours on this training. First we listened to a presentation, during which we were asked how we might become aware of the presence of an active shooter. Gunshots, people screaming, people running, people bleeding, etc. Duh. Then we watched a video of a dramatized mass shooting (during which some colleagues were already crying), and then we tried to survive our own drill. Just go back to work as usual. In about ten to fifteen minutes, someone's going to come to kill you. Good luck. It's just like a haunted corn maze except that you're trying to do mail merge while waiting for psychos.

Of course no one could focus after that, so instead we discussed our options. Should we run? Do we hide? Would scissors make an effective weapon?

When the alarm went off, though, we had seconds to shut the blinds (because somehow that took higher priority than locking or at least shutting the door that was propped open), but before I could take a single step -- BANG, BANG, BANG BANG BANG (actually a guy yelling "BANG") -- my whole office was eliminated. I thought back to that dumb question the officer asked us and added one more answer: You might become aware of an active shooter when you see him in the doorway and your colleague next to you just got shot and the gun is pointed at you. I think I was casualty number three out of forty. And in real life the alarm would not even have sounded yet because we would have been the reason for the alarm. You never think you're going to be first.

We had a debriefing and then I was still supposed to work another hour. Right.

I found the training useful for people who are not first, and I can see why they left the fourth possibility -- dying -- out of the training. That's what we're trying to avoid. But if you're first...goodbye. It just seemed absurd, not only because of the costumes, but because we even have to do this at all. It's likely enough that someone's going to randomly kill us that we need to do something about it, so let's practice running and hiding and fighting. (And dying.) And then let's keep teaching people English as a second language and doing mail merge to improve their lives. Not that I have a better solution.

Oh hello crazed shooter, just a moment while I refer to my pocket guide...

I know I've said this before, but... I don't think I get paid enough.

Next they're going to kick us out for taking showers.

Sorry I disappeared for so long, but I didn't have internet for awhile after moving. Anyway, the new place is great... in itself. It became immediately evident, however, that the landlords are completely incompetent scumbags. Ever since we moved in, we have had one problem after another. Pretty much everything that can leak, is, and multiple attempts at "fixing" them have failed.

Now we come home to find this on our door:

OK, this wasn't on our door. The version minus the stickers was on our door.

These fools gave us their last key to their own property, consequently did not have access to their own property as required by law, and are proceeding to try to evict us for their own mistake.

I'm still looking for an appropriately ridiculous frame before I display this on the wall in a prominent location for the next time the "maintenance" people come over. They should just rent out our guest bedroom since they're here practically every day anyway.

I'm just waiting for the ceiling to cave in from our bathtub leak that they keep "fixing" and then get charged for it.

The cherry on top of this absurdity is that before we moved in, they changed our doorknob from one that locks from the inside to one that only locks from outside so that we wouldn't lock ourselves out and come running to them for a key. HAHAHAHAHAHA

The internet confirms: I am Pirate Cinderella.

I wanted to be Cinderella for Halloween but I only had a pirate hat... so Pirate Cinderella, it is. If you Google "pirate cinderella," you find this picture of Cinderella wearing a pirate hat with my name on it.

It was meant to be.

How did you know, Google? Are you in my brain??

I think my blood is trying to tell me something.

I got my results back from the lab and hoped I only had six months to live so that I could shuffle off this mortal coil, but alas, everything was normal. Everything except...

Stop looking at my abnormal bun.

I am quite sure I do not have any bunions, so I indignantly showed my mom the report. She read it, paused, looked me in the eye and said, "Your buns are low." Thanks, Mom.

I did some research and it turns out that I am not sentenced to an early death, so I guess I'll keep shuffling on...

At least he used the magic word... mom taught him well.

I'm not sure why this is happening, but it seems that the older I get, the younger the men I attract. This was a record, though. After church service, this scrawny kid walked up to me and wordlessly handed me a note. I took it and read: My name is Carter. My number is ###-###-####. Really? Cute! I wasn't sure how to respond. I didn't have any paper, so I just used the speaking-words. I believe "um... I'm old" are the specific words that came out of my mouth. I asked him if he was in college and he said no, but he's twenty-one. Twenty-one! He handed me another note: Can I please have your number? Sparing him the horror of my age number, I nonetheless insisted that my phone number was not a thing he wanted, and he left.

Awkward enough... then his mom showed up and wanted the scoop! She assured me that he was a sweet boy but was going down a wayward path, so when he calls me I should just try to get him back on track. I explained that her son was ten years my junior but didn't have the heart to tell her that I wouldn't be exhorting him because I didn't actually give him my number.

People, I have visible gray hair. I don't know if I need to dress differently or what.