Finally

It's here, finally. Like that beer you've waited too long for, after an incredibly bad day. Snow makes cold weather bearable. Until June, and then, holy shit. The second-to-last day of school in 2007 was a snow day. Instead of walking a couple blocks to Dairy Queen for their final field trip, Madeleine's class watched a beat-up copy of Say Anything and drank Goldschlagger straight from the bottle.

The kids are at a birthday party now, and I'm supposed to be doing errands, like buying stamps and getting myself a new hockey puck. In fact, this morning I woke up excited for this purchase. My very first hockey puck. Will it be black? Will I write my name on it? Will I look silly with a brand new puck - should I artfully scuff it? It's so reminiscent of buying my first Trapper Keeper. Or bong. The Trapper Keeper wasn't black, and was a serious disappointment. Whoever invented the shitty plastic that makes up 75% of kids' school paraphanelia must have known it was going to one day poison the earth or at least anyone who breathed in its general vicinity. BPE in school! Don't worry, our product is so crap, it will fall apart and scatter your report on flying squirrels into the Cowlitz River before you can die from BPE cancer!

The bong, on the other hand. I was not a good pot smoker. Did you hear a repetitive thumping sound at about 2 am EST on May 13th, 1992? That was me, kicking a baseball against a 200-year-old wooden door in the dorm room of Saybrook College, while The End played on repeat and my future husband sat on his stanky couch smoking out of a bong fashioned from a 5-gallon water bottle. And that was one of the better sessions. (Hi Mom! Remember when I came home from school in spring of my senior year to interview with a future employer and I had that huge scab on the side of my face? That was the result of a less-good sesh. Sorry. At least you know my hard-earned cash from David's Deli was only going towards legal stuff.) The purchase of that bong was as ill-advised as the Chinese chocolates on sale at Walgreens last summer. But hey! It was buy one tub of Chinese Formula, get a vintage Thomas Train kit free!

So anyway, I shoveled and I chilled, and now off to get those stamps. And pucks. Puck. Do you buy two at a time? So much to learn. Maybe I should google it. Ooh - something tells me this could get me beat up at Stick and Puck, unless I get an elk head pasted on it.