ah-ha, so that's what having your own laptop is like.

So, I've finally purchased my first post-college computer. Took damn long enough, seeing as I graduated in 2004. I decided that it was absolutely necessary in order to get my life straight, since the cost of it isn't half of what I spend on completely gratuitious purchases from the $1 bin at Target. OK, so maybe I'm exaggerating, but it's definitely not half of what I spend on the completely gratuitious purchases at Target in general. Per year.

Now that I think about it, I probably could've been able to justify going all out and getting a pretty MacBookPro had I not picked up that Hello Kitty . I was informed by all of my geeky IT friends that I "didn't really need it because you'll probably only use it for your pictures and for music and maybe a blog or something gay like that." Whatever. I guess I do like this little Toshiba machine. It doesn't say TOSHIBA all the way across the cover, and while it doesn't have the neato magnet closure or camera that I wouldn't use, it doesn't offend me--the correct buttons are right there, and the speakers aren't ugly, and I don't get fingerprints all over it, since it's nice and matte.

I was actually pretty pleased with myself when I actually made the purchase, since I had already managed to have two mini-breakdowns at Best Buy at the previous visits with Peter. When we finally selected this laptop during visit #2, Patrick (the Best Buy guy) did a stock check to find out that the only one left was the floor model. This was absolutely unnacceptable. Not only was it missing the letter "S," but the thought of hundreds of grubby hands touching something that I'd be practically living with for the next two years (at least) made me want to vomit. I think I scared Patrick...it must've been around the time that I muttered, "I never want to come back to this godforesaken store ever again." Peter performed his due diligence in explaining to the unassuming salesperson that it "wasn't him, it's her...she's kind of stressed out." Either way, he scurried off to make a copy of the model number, price, etc. tag to give to me, and pulled the other locations that had stock.

Naturally, there was nothing in the 20 mile radius, and since Patrick seems to suffer from Maryland syndrome (uh, duh, DC and VA are right THERE, and they're clearly superior to this crab-crazed state), he didn't really know how to work the system to pull information from the other Best Buy "districts." As a result of his fear of me, he allowed me to take the reins of the system, and I found it in the lovely Arlington Potomac Yard Best Buy. Phew.

Gabe from Potomac Yard was competent and obedient, and even better, he gave me a discount. I bought it all on my own, and even managed to use my feminine wiles to take $25 more off. Victory.

Now that the laptop saga has been documented, I can now begin the main drama; that is, my rants over everything, my complaints over nothing, and my endless questioning of what it is I'm doing with my life.