That's just what happened on St. Patrick's Day!

Seriously, I have only one more day of freedom before becoming re-entrenched in the world of paid employment. What will happen? Will I become re-acclimated peacefully and quietly? Will I become overcome with anxiety and self-doubt and run out the door, sobbing? Will I break off a pen nib in someone's ass after he annoys me? Time will tell.

Those who've switched between worlds know what I mean. Make no mistake -- there are parallel worlds existing side by side every day: the working world, and the non-working world. I'm going to have to adjust to a schedule, to putting on clothes with non-elastic waistbands, and re-joining a herd -- especially since I'll be taking public transportation. I'll be loaded onto a cattle car, move down the sidewalk in a herd, cross at the corner when my herd receives an electronic prompt from a flashing light, then sit in a pen for 7 hours.

I don't know about this.

Of course, the one good point is I'll still have Fridays to be a free-range human. Weekends don't count as freedom, because the herds are still herds, only they're herding into grocery stores and movie theaters. No, only when you're free during a weekday are you truly free.

Take the grocery store, for example. During the weekday, you don't get amateurs or exhausted, brain-dead workers or pathetic divorced 40-year-old men loading cases of beer and frozen pizza and Oreos into their carts. No, you get the professionals. The people who know how to choose a cut of meat and a carton of eggs and fresh produce. They don't waste time aimlessly walking the aisles, at a loss as to what to make and forgetting exactly how to make chili and leaving their carts in inconvenient locations. They have their money ready and their groceries loaded onto the conveyor belt in the order in which they'd like them loaded into the bags and aren't confused or distracted by the celebrity magazines at the checkout aisle. These are my people. And I'm being exiled from them. Except for Fridays!

I'm secretly in love with the grocery store. I love commercials that include shots of grocery stores, like the ones with the M&M's trying to run backwards on the conveyor belt to avoid being put in the shopping bag, or the Dunkin Donut's coffee one where the housewives get magically pulled to the grocery store by their coffee cups. I tried to find that commercial on YouTube, but I couldn't find it. I did find THIS Dunkin Donuts advertisement, however, and while it has nothing to do with grocery stores, it amused me nonetheless:



What happened to mini donuts? I want some!