Next time, a picture.

I saw the funniest typo I have seen in quite a while the other day at work. I stopped by the office to drop off some paperwork. No one was there, because it was after hours. I noticed what looked like a waiting-room chair that had been removed from its place and was sitting in the front office (where the secretaries and medical records people sit). There was a sign taped to the chair, with the handwritten command, "Urinate on chair" sprawled across it. I did a double-take (obviously), and after some confusion decided that the person must have meant to explain why the chair was out of place, and to warn fellow staff not to sit on it--in other words, I think the intended message was probably, "Urine on chair." Hahaha. Ha. Haha.

In Which We are Terrorized by a Villainous Sheriff Inspector and Kentucky State Law.

It's inevitable, isn't it? Whenever I go on a trip, the preceding week is bound to be crazy.

I sat down to write this post with three closed doors separating me from our handy smoke alarm, throwing its token tantrum because I decided to cook myself a hot meal for lunch. (A pizza sub, to be exact. Delish.) I feel like one of those moms who says, "Sometimes you just have to let 'em cry it out," because I was not in the mood to damage my hearing while fanning the thing off with a broom for several minutes. There was actually something oddly satisfying about saying, "You can beep all you want. I'll be in the office when you're feeling calm enough to behave yourself."

Months ago, when Chad and I got our car insurance, we realized our Camry was not technically ours. My Dad gave it to me over two years ago when I moved to Alabama, but never actually signed the title over or did anything official. The insurance company said we could have 30 days to get the title transferred and the car registered in my name, or we'd have to list my Dad on the policy. Of course, 30 days came and went, and I completely forgot about that little agreement I made with the insurance people.

So now, several months later, I get a letter from them ("We understand your time is valuable, however. . ." Yeah, my time is valuable, but mostly I just forgot.) asking me to fax them a copy of the registration in my name within 15 days. (er, proof that it's registered in my name? ahem. why of course I can send you that...maybe by day 14 if I'm lucky.) Miraculously, the letter came while my parents were in town, so we were able to get our signatures notarized on the application form for KY.

Yesterday, Chad and I went down to the sheriff inspector to get the mandatory inspection done. I wish SO BADLY that I had a picture of this establishment. You'll just have to trust me when I say it was ghetto. It was on the backside of a building, and the door had several (WAY TOO MANY) signs on it, one of which said, "Please only knock once." Chad didn't see it apparently, and knocked several times before I could hiss, "Chad, stop!". When the sheriff lady came to the door, she had the most foul look on her face. I felt like saying, "We're here to see the wizard!" But I didn't. She instructed us to get in line. ("Which line?" we asked, because we felt like we were in the middle of a parking lot with cars everywhere and no visible "line" of cars. "Whichever one's shorter," she said gruffly, and shut the door in our faces.) We found the line though, because we're smart.

Then we waited. Got the documents and our 5 bucks ready. She came and took our stuff, wrote down the mileage, circled around to the front of the car, and then came back to the driver's seat window and handed me my papers and money back. "Can't do it. Windshield's cracked." And without any further explanation, she walked away. What?!

Okay, it was pretty darn cracked, but the crack(s) don't obstruct my line of vision. Which is why I haven't fixed it since it happened two years ago. And we thought maybe she was just a grouchy person, and wondered if we should just try and find a nicer sheriff inspector. But we called around and found out that the state of Kentucky won't allow a car with a cracked windshield to be registered, no matter the shape or size of the damage.

The awesome part of this whole thing is that my insurance covered the windshield repair because of some waiver they have in KY (probably because of all this crazy strictness about not having a broken windshield in this state). So I got it fixed today. Hooray! The not-so-awesome part is that on Friday, Chad gets to go back and visit our sheriff friend again so we can take care of the registration before our trip. Gotta love government bureaucracy!

Oh yeah, 'cause we're leaving Friday. In three days. On vacation. To Philadelphia. And ARUBA. Remember?

Embarrassing Moment

Well, I am feeling rather embarrassed right now.

Remember the panties-and-bra prank our neighbors pulled a few weeks ago? And the cups-o-water prank we got them back with? They looooved it. And they also let us in on a secret--that some of our other neighbors had also been involved in the panties-and-bra prank. So naturally, we've been plotting our response 

Chad thought of something simple, but delightful. A nice "Give Thanks" banner (you know, keeping in the spirit of the holidays and all) constructed of the bras and panties left over from the original prank. It didn't take long to make, but putting it up without getting caught was more difficult impossible.

Last night, we went over around 11pm. Lights on in the front room. No sight of the neighbors, but who knows if they might have strolled into their front room and seen us out there. No go.

This morning, we got up at 6am thinking we could quickly hang the banner. The minute we stepped onto the porch, their dog (who knew they had a dog?!) started barking its head off. Fail.

So today, when one of my appointments cancelled, I saw my chance. Both of their cars were gone, and I thought, "This is going to be so awesome. I'm going to pull this off in broad daylight." (Broad daylight, yes, but pulling it off...not so much).

So there I was, with the banner almost hung up completely, standing on their front porch trying to get the letters to hang right, smiling smugly at the dog barking on the other side of the door, when suddenly, my neighbor's car appears and pulls into their driveway. I duck down, but then realize we've made full eye contact, it's completely light outside, and I'm still standing--frozen--on the porch. 

I made a little joke when he got out of the car and said, "Oh hey, I was just delivering that banner you ordered." Ha. Ha. And then he helped me finish putting it up. Pretty sweet, although I was pretty embarrassed for getting caught. He says he'll leave it up so his girlfriend can be surprised.

I must say, I'm feeling much less confident about my pranking abilities. Guess I needed to be humbled a bit. 

as you can see, I never quite got the letters to hang right, but I was too embarrassed to obsess over the details once the guy got home. I was pretty excited to get outta there. . . (oh hey! I just noticed you can see the dog standing in the doorway. he was not happy with me.)

Prank Wars, Part II

After much hemming and hawing, we selected the ol' cups-full-of-water-stacked-in-a-pyramid-blocking-their-front-door prank for the neighbors. I think they liked it. My informal neighborhood survey tells me that neighborhood morale has increased several points in the past two days, and I can't help but attribute the increase to some great pranks.

notice the water on the ground in this picture--we did have a slip-up and knock over about half of the tower at one point. lucky for us, the family's two dogs said nothing, no alarms went off, and we were able to complete the project. 

Notice Anything Funny About Our House?

Look harder. . .

yep. bras and panties in our tree.

we consider ourselves officially initiated into the neighborhood.

The main issue at this point, is not how do we get them off of our tree (although, eventually I should probably worry about that), but rather how on earth are we going to get our revenge? Somehow I feel like TP-ing isn't wacky/embarrassing enough. Any ideas? We need something good for our favorite new neighbors. . .

Oh, and just so you know, we actually love these neighbors. I was honestly a bit. . .honored to see our tree all decorated when I left for work this morning. It's a bit of a standing prank in the neighborhood, so we feel like this is our official welcome. But really, we've gotta figure out something good.

Tomorrow, I will show you the AWESOME candy corn cookies we made last night! 

Sweet Home Alabama

Today I went out to the home of some of my clients in Phenix City for therapy. They live in a tiny house with the most amazing backyard I have ever seen. Right on the river. The teenage daughter had told me her backyard was "like, the most amazing yard ever, but [her] parents were so [bleeeeeeep] that they never let anyone come over," but I figured she was probably exaggerating.

Nope, it was really that awesome.

But I was too shy to ask to take pictures. After an hour and a half of "therapy" that felt like Jerry Springer meets Steel Magnolias, however, I was ready to find some pretty outdoors. I found the Phenix City River Walk. I love it, and I can't believe I've worked in this town two days a week for an entire year without finding this place! The sun was just fixin' to go down, people were out fishin' and walkin' and runnin', and I just felt so glad to be there.

I have a theme song?!

A google search for "Camilla the Gorilla"  brought up this video. (I was looking for a specific post I made a few years back and  was too lazy to dig through the archives on my blog). Anyway, what a weird clip (what on earth are kids watching these days? and is that Melissa Joan Hart? weird).

I would say, "Enjoy," but that might be insulting. How could I not post this, though?

a fire alarm fiasco, and other unrelated updates

Our fire alarm malfunctioned yesterday, at 5 in the morning. Actually, I think maybe it just needed new batteries. Unfortunately, neither my roommate nor I had an extra 9 volt battery on hand, and the alarm continued to shriek at me even after I took the old battery out. After fiddling with the thing for a good 20 minutes AND calling the "emergency" maintenance number (they have a lightning-fast turn-around rate of about 24 hours...I guess if there's ever a "real" emergency we'll call 911), and just as I had grabbed my keys and mumbled, "Well, I guess I could go to the store and get a battery," my roommate decided she had had it. "Maybe I should just rip it off the wall!" she said, and before I knew it, she had done just that. I stood paralyzed for the next few seconds as she marched straight out the door and threw the still-chirping alarm off the balcony. Probably just as well--I'm pretty sure the thing was possessed.

School is ending for the semester. I finished classes and finals last week, and have spent this week trying to feel okay about leaving clients for 2 weeks so I can go home for Christmas. Today is my paperwork catch-up day. Hooray!! (Not.)

I am reading an awesome book about the Sabbath by Senator Joe Leiberman. It is so interesting. He is Jewish, and I'm learning a lot about their Sabbath rituals. I have found it to be very applicable as it's gotten me thinking about how I can enhance my own Sabbath observance.

I made the best smoothie yesterday, and again today. I bought frozen cherries (the sweet kind) at the store. I blended those, a banana, soy milk, some ground flax seed, and some ice and YUM! I am in LOVE!

Tuesday is the big day--travel day. I can't wait. Chad and I are both flying out on Tuesday (he'll leave from Louisville, and I'll leave from Atlanta). We'll meet up in Houston, where we have a 3 hour layover. The great part is, his sister lives in Houston, so I think we're gonna meet up with her. For once, I'm excited about having a longish layover! Ah, and then we fly to Grand Junction. I can't wait to be home for Christmas. I've been dreaming about it non-stop for the past oh...month. At least.

Oh, one more update. I went to visit my friend Lauren this last weekend in Decatur, AL. We had so much fun. I'm gonna post a link to my favorite song I heard at the concert we went to. Happy December, and hope your Christmas is wonderful, wherever you are.

You too can style your hair at home!!

For a fraction of the price. But, you better have a friend/roommate like mine: she's a saint.



Fortunately, for her first time, Esperanza showed amazing skills taming the wild mane. Question: do I have some African heritage that I was never made aware of? Honestly. Where did this hair come from?



Thanks, Espy.

News Flash: I love the post office

No, there is not a trace of sarcasm in that title. I really do, if for just a day, LOVE the post office.

Normally, I hate the post office. I feel like the employees are often slothful and apathetic, as if deliberately trying to drive me mad. (It doesn't help any that I don't generally designate adequate time to get in and get out. Generally, I manage to forget the slothful and apathetic way in which my visit will undoubtedly be received, and then, inevitably, I am forced to painfully remember as I wait there in line for who-knows-what to get done so I can hand over my package and some money and be done with it.)

Today was different. Let me be clear--the employees seemed lethargic as usual, a state likely aggrandized by the fact that closing time was only a few ticks away. However, once to the counter, I had a much better experience than I had anticipated.

Allow me to backtrack: I was coming from the apartment manager's office, where I had been patronized by a woman in a twangy, condescending tone, "Don't you remember, sweetie? When you were here to sign the lease we told y'all that you'd have to go pick it up from the post office." (Actually, the same woman had instructed us to come back on Monday to get it from her, which is precisely what I was trying to do. Another roommate, also present for the original exchange, had tried to do the same thing but 20 minutes before, unbeknown to me.)

Allow me to backtrack even further: We misplaced our mail key last week. I called and left a message at our apartment manager's office on Memorial Day, asking what we would need to do if we lost our mail key (uh, hypothetically, of course). Our lovely management promptly called the post office and ordered a new mail key and informed us it would cost $15, although in the interim between my leaving a message and speaking with the management again, we had found the original mail key. But, too late. They'd ordered a new one, and it was too late to cancel, as they discovered in calling the post office.

So we're done backtracking. There I was, at the post office today, 5 minutes before closing time, there to pick up a key I didn't really want but desperately needed because our mail lock had been changed. And I was gonna have to pay for it. The man went to look for the mail key. He brought not one, but three mail keys, which means one key for each of my roommates and myself, instead of one clumsily-passed baton that gets dropped and/or forgotten to be hung on the hook in our kitchen. When he brought out the keys, he said, "Has this already been paid for?"

"Uh, no. I don't know. Does it look like it has been?" I said.

"Uh...not really. Yeah. Uh...I'm just gonna give these to you."

I signed off on the deal, and he asked to verify my ID. "Have you ever watched CSI Miami?" he asked, alternately studying my face and then the picture gleaming up from my license. "You look exactly like that girl, Poppi Monroe. The girl on that show." I hadn't seen the show, and I didn't know who she was, but I figured it was flattering to have someone think you look like a movie star. I came home and googled her and decided it was, indeed, a compliment.

So, in summary, I walked away with three times the amount of product for infinitely less price than I expected, and I looked like a movie star while doing it. Boo-yeah.

How to Have a Crawfish Boil

1. Put the crawfish in a big pot of boiling water. The water must be boiling first, and the crawfish must be live until they hit the water. (This is important, I am told). Throw some cajun seasoning, potatoes, onion, sausage, and corn in there, too.

2. Throw down all the food onto a spread of newspaper. Assemble your friends and family. This is a social event--a conversation set to the soundtrack of slurping and shell-cracking. Choose your first delicacy. Hold up the crawdad with your fingers. Twist off the tail, as shown.

3. You can suck the juice out of the front half (the head--yummmm) if you've got the stomach for that sort of thing. Otherwise, peel back some of the shell surrounding the tail.

4. Pull the tail meat out of the rest of the shell.

You will have some guests who pretend not to enjoy the crawfish. Don't worry--this is normal. When they've got a mound of discarded shells the size of their head, it is safe to say they like the crawfish.

Delight.

Appetizing, no?

The second batch was a lot redder than the first. I guess that happens when your propane burner is working better and your water gets hotter and the crawfish get cooked better.

Huge Math Victory Leads to Free Frozen Yogurt

That's right, folks. Today's big story is one of triumph: it's about a girl who thought she was really bad at math her whole life just to find out, in one high-stakes, telling moment, that she's actually pretty stinkin' awesome at it.

Our heroine was out for a night on the town to celebrate the brightening light at the end of the tunnel known as "a semester of graduate school." She entered her favorite frozen yogurt joint, prepared to blissfully surrender 45 cents per ounce of the glorious substance. A sign caught her eye, which read, "Smoothies: Fill a cup 2/3 full with yogurt of your choice, and we will add juice of your choice and blend." Intrigued, she queried a roaming employee as to available flavors of said juice, who promptly went to see what sorts were available.

Upon returning, the lass regretfully informed our heroine that there was no more juice; she added, smilingly, that our heroine could receive her yogurt for but half of the asking price. Our heroine protested, as she had already determined to buy yogurt instead of a smoothie, anyway. However, the young yogurt peddler insisted, and our heroine was happy to relent.

There are so many flavors in a yogurt establishment such as this one: peanut butter, oreo, thin mint, cheesecake, fruit sorbets and at least 10 varieties besides. However, Thin Mint was quickly settled upon and our heroine advanced to the counter to pay, after securing a most generous portion of the Thin Mint cream.

At the counter, there was another sign which caught her eye. This one read, "Guess your yogurt's weight within .10 ounce and it's free!" Our heroine (who, remember, was never very sure of her aptitude for mathematics) creased her brow, tapped her foot, and felt the pressure of a growing line of customers waiting to pay for their yogurt. "Think, think, think!" she told herself. She knew that her yogurt generally cost somewhere around $5, and she knew the cost was .45 per ounce. The math seemed simple enough, but the growing line of customers made her feel flustered and frantic. And then, in a sudden burst of division skills, she knew the answer--or at least, a pretty good one. "9.5 ounces!" she wagered, expectantly.

The attendant's eyebrows raised as she weighed the yogurt and then said, "9.32 ounces. Not bad! I was gonna give it to you for half-off anyway, so I'm gonna give it to you for free."

Dun-duh-duh-DUN!! Triumph! Thank you, GRE prep class. Not only did you help me get into graduate school, you helped me get free yogurt. And for that, I will be forever grateful.

Note: Sorry for the weird writing style. As I mentioned, it is near the end of the semester, and taking longish breaks to use thesaurus.com and write ridiculous blog posts seems way more appealing than working on my final Stats memo.

Eavesdropping

I wasn't really eavesdropping, because the guy was yelling pretty loud. I was sitting and watching the Auburn baseball team get slaughtered by Vanderbilt's team. A guy a few rows down was yelling some pretty piercing insults to players from the other team, in a desperate attempt to console himself over our team's hopeless condition (example: "20 hits, and you couldn't even get one!!" He screamed that to one of Vandy's players after he struck out, citing Vandy's 20 hits up to that point. The irony is that Auburn had only gotten 2 hits at that point).

But my favorite insult was this one, which seemed to come right before our team hit rock bottom, and after a string of other nasty cuts from this heckler guy. Either he was really scraping the bottom of the barrel, or he was saving his best ammunition for last: "Your football team is so bad, y'all haven't been to a bowl game in 30 years!!!"

Wow. That's how I knew I was in the South. (Well, and also because I just remembered I was.)

Wanna know what keeps me sane at work?

It's a fishing pole.

After working here for about 5 months, I decided I deserved a seating change. I selected a cubicle right next to favorite co-worker #1, and right across from favorite co-worker #2. Favorite co-worker #2 fashioned a fishing pole out of two wooden dowels (not sure where he found them) taped together, with a couple of shoe-laces tied end-to-end forming the line. Whenever one of us is bored, we have but to lower the line down onto the other side of the divider between our desks, and wait for the other to attach some prize. I've fished out all kinds of things. Yesterday, it was a pack of Gushers. Another day, it was a mouse pad. Once it was a cleaned-out Wendy's salad bowl (Weird, I know, but FC#2 knows I like to reuse them).

This kind of fishing is still just as thrilling as I remember it being as a kid.

Famous People, and Nebraska

Last weekend was quite eventful as I traveled to Lincoln, Nebraska for a graduate school interview. I got to the Salt Lake Airport at 5 am Thursday morning and boarded my flight. As I sat at my window seat, wondering who would be occupying the seat next to me, a very large man came into view. I grumbled within myself. "Oh great, looks like I'll be sharing half of my seat," I thought.

The man sat down and we began chatting. He was on his way to Colorado to give a speech. When I asked him what for, he told me he used to wrestle. "Like, professionally?" was all I could think to ask. "I won the gold medal in Sydney and the bronze in Athens." What?! At that point I knew I had heard of him, but I had to ask his name. "Rulon Gardner," he confirmed. No way--I was sitting next to Rulon Gardner. We talked about what it felt like to win a Gold Medal, and how one goes about training for a sport like wrestling. My dumb question was, "How do you train for wrestling, anyway? It's not like you can just wrestle people, all the time!" He paused, and then said, "Yep, that's how you train. You just wrestle people, all the time. Big people, small people. You just find people to wrestle."

In Denver, I got on my connecting flight to Omaha. This time I sat next to a man with a British accent, and we immediately began chatting about where we were going and why. He was a musician headed to Iowa for a performance. When I probed, I found out he was a member of the King's Singers. He told me about singing for President Hinckley, we talked about religious traditions like Mardi Gras and Lent, and he told me stories of times when he had failed or not been given what he wanted but how he knew God had a plan for him. He seemed like such a wise fellow. His parting words to me were, "Have a nice journey. Be yourself!"

And there I was, in Omaha, having spent my morning with two different famous people, and wondering what I could/should have learned from each of them. And then I started thinking about how much I could probably learn from ANY person, if I could sit with them and talk with them and invest the same amount of interest in what they had to say as I would for an Olympic athlete or a world-class singer.

The next four days were spent in Lincoln, Nebraska. Friday I had my all-day interview with the faculty of the Marriage and Family Therapy program at University of Nebraska. It was great; I was impressed by the program and liked the town. I added a slew of items to the 'pros' side of my running pros and cons list for Nebraska (I have one for each of the schools I'm applying to).

Tuesday morning I got a call from one of the MFT faculty from Nebraska. I'm in! What a huge relief to get in to a program. I will go to school next year, for sure! I have two interviews left, and lots more considering to do, but I'm stoked about the idea of being a Corn Husker.

Oh. My. Heck.

What a crazy night of work.

First off, as I was driving to work tonight I got caught in a blizzard. I prayed, and I sang hymns, and I felt inclined to think about what would happen if I slipped off the edge of the highway and died. I pleaded with God to let me stay. And I thought how it would be exciting to see Grandpa Davis if He didn't let me stay. But I figured Grandpa Davis and probably some other people, too, wanted me to stay.

I wasn't sure whether to pull over, keep driving, or turn around and go home. But I was expected at work. And there were other people on the road, too. So I kept driving. When the snow really got bad, I'd already entered the canyon and didn't have cell service anymore. So I plunged onward at 25 miles an hour.

I was half an hour late to work, and my co-worker hadn't arrived yet. When one of the day shift people called her to see if she was okay, she said she had been pulled over by a highway patrolman who told her to turn around and go home. Because there was only one of me, and also because the storm was bad, the two day-shifters had to stay.

It was funny to start out the shift with them. One of them was almost giddy at the thought of sitting and watching a movie on my laptop. A Series of Unfortunate Events and 3 episodes of The Office later, however, they were both out cold. One is sleeping at my end of the hall, and the other is sleeping at the other end. Both are laying flat on their stomachs. I am safely perched on the "sick bed," a sort of futon built into the wall.

"Safely perched." Because a few minutes ago, I thought I saw a mouse in the corner of my eye. I dismissed the idea, because when I first got hired, the program director had hired someone to come "take care of the mouse problem." I had heard them scuttling around in the walls, and outside the windows, but hadn't ever seen one face to face.

But a couple minutes after I thought I had imagined seeing a mouse, I really did see a mouse. It ran out onto the carpet, and stood there, inches from my sleeping co-workers face. I refrained from screaming because I knew if she woke up she would be completely terrorized, and every girl in this place would wake up, too. The little mousey ran under the pillow her head's on, and then retraced its steps and ran away again.

Anyway, I'm happy to be up here on this "sick bed." And I'm happy to be alive. I'm grateful to have Buck the 4-Runner, with four-wheel drive for storms. I'm happy there are only 3 more hours left in this shift. I'm happy that this week is Thanksgiving. I'm happy that today is my third-to-last shift at this place--ever. I'm happy to have had a job.

I'm happy that God lives and the Savior came. I had a realization in the car today that I really haven't done everything I want to, yet. I also realized that no matter when this life ends, Jesus Christ will have to make up for my shortcomings. I felt extremely humbled to imagine my lack of preparedness to meet God, despite my efforts. Yet somehow I felt assured that He would make it okay. I feel so grateful for that today, and wish I could feel this grateful more often without almost dying.

The Seville

I've been job searching, and recently found a job. But that's not what this post will be about. This post will be about my favorite job posting, found on Craigslist.

The job listing wasn't so much for a job, as it was for a contest. A contest for the best song about the retirement community called The Seville, the writer of which would win $300. Now, I am an amateur songwriter but I enjoy the art, and my interest was piqued at this chance to earn some hard cash by stringing together the right kind of words and tune. What kind of song could they possibly be looking for? I stewed over the question for a few days and then surprised myself by taking the ad writer's suggestion--I went to the Seville, in person, to "get a feel for the place."

With a brochure in hand, a 4-minute, awkward conversation with The Seville management behind me, and a much better understanding of what kind of song I needed to write, I returned home. I was surprised to learn that the winning song would not be some sort of 30-second radio jingle, but rather, a sort of theme song designed to be sung by the residents about the place they live. I also learned that The Seville is a place where retired people can go to enjoy retirement. They eat three chef-prepared meals a day, can exercise in the exercise room, socialize with other retirees, and can even travel and stay in any of some odd 250 Sevilles around the country (all of this included in their easy, month-to-month rent payment). They can bring their pets with them. There is no medical care at the Seville. These, I concluded, were the rich, hip grandparents who don't feel like taking care of their house anymore, but not because they can't.

Anyway, I wrote a song. And because The Seville's brochure indicated that The Seville was part of a chain called "Holiday Residences" or "Holiday" something or other, I used the word "holiday" in the chorus. And the chorus, which I can't sing without imagining a chorus of elderly voices clamoring along with me, says, "Who says you need a holiday to feel this way?" I'll spare you the rest of the lyrics.

The funny part was yesterday, when I sang my newly-written song to my roommate, Megan--I always like to test new songs out on her--and I forgot to explain to her what sort of a place The Seville was. So as I was singing, she was imagining a place much like the majority of nursing homes I think we've all been to. And after I sang the line, "Who says you need a holiday to feel this way?" a few times, she finally couldn't keep it in any longer. She shook her head and asked, "Feel what way? Sick and dying?!"

It's true that people with oxygen tanks and wheel chairs don't need a holiday to feel whatever way they're feeling. But would they really sing a song about it? Probably not. At the same time, would perfectly healthy seniors actually go around singing the song written about the place they live? Would my roommates and I ever sing a song written in tribute to the ghetto apartment complex we call home?

Maybe I'll let you know how the contest turns out.