Hey diddle diddle
The cat and the fiddle
The cow jumped over the moon!
The little dog laughed
To see such sport
And the dish ran away with the spoon

He ran from conviction
And fed his addiction
As the dish heated the spoon
The spoon begged to go
But the dish shouted “NO!
The heroin will be ready soon.”

by Kris

I hadn’t had the patience (or I was always late) recently to actually take a bus ride this long since the start of the holidays; and although I used to take a long bus journey everyday from secondary school, I remembered myself actually enjoying it. At that moment, however, I could not for the life of me understand or remember why. I saw nothing interesting in the dark streets. In no time at all, I was nodding off.

When I woke up from having my head bang against the side of the window (which is perpetually covered in hair grease and spider webs and other nefarious whatnots), I told myself that I was going to stay awake for the remaining forty-five minutes of the journey to avoid further grievances. And so I did.

After fifteen minutes of having music blasting into my ears and thinking about nothing at all (besides how long more I was going to take to get home), my brain just seemed to jump start, to really think. And when it stopped thinking and reflecting and solving small math problems, it’s attention turned to nostalgia and fond memories and the two pretty fit guys sitting in front who weren’t wearing shirts (for reasons unknown).

After the small series of really strange and random epiphanies, good music and the cathartic lulling rhythm of orbiting thoughts, I was almost disappointed when the bus turned down the corner to my street.

But hey. I was home!

However, I’ll bet my next allowance that the next time I board a bus, I’ll forget all about this and have to learn it all over again.

It’s just one of those slippery, blissful, gift-from-God things that people so easily forget when it’s not smack dab in the rhythm of their daily life.

Thank God for long bus rides.

-Bill Watterson, author of Calvin & Hobbes

But that isn’t the point.

When I stood at the counter I thought my heart was going to burst. I was going to get my debit card! Not just an ATM card, but a DEBIT CARD (ever notice how it’s one alphabet away from DEBT?).

The first thing they did was to cut up my old ATM card with a pair of scissors. I swear I felt my heart stop for a moment. I mean, come on, that was my very first ticket into big-girl world. Not only, it had also stuck with me for pretty long and saved me from alot of sticky financial situations. It was there for me when no one else was. It paid for my stuff.

So yes, you could say I was pretty attached to it.

But anyway, it was in two pieces then, so…

They gave me my shiny new black card and told me to sign it. So came back to life my beating heart when I held the pen. That very moment when the pen touched the card was going to bring me one step closer to financial independence (one tiny step at a time, people). So I held the pen in my hand and rehearsed exactly how I was going to sign my signature in my head. It was going to be perfect, no slip-ups. My hands shivered.

Then I reached out like a pro and I signed it.

Perfectly.

No slip-ups.

I heaved a sigh of relief, because everyone knows how often and how easily Murphy’s law can sneak up on you.

And then I looked at it a little closer. It looked smudgable. The ink was still slightly shiny against the white background. So I blew on it. There, that should be better.

I ran my finger over it just to show myself.

AND THEN IT SMUDGED. RIGHT ACROSS THE !@#$% STRIP OF WHITE STICKER. I thought I was going to die.

They wouldn’t give me another card. I have a smudgy debit card now.

“According to one equation devised by Dr. Cliff Arnall, a British researcher from Cardiff University, Jan. 18 is 2010’s most depressing day. His formula for this bleak prediction takes into account factors like post-holiday blahs and debt, failed New Year’s resolutions and, this year, the nasty chill that has reached much further south than usual. This particular peak in seasonal affective disorder (SAD) isn’t the only time that we’re prone to feeling low.”

How encouraging, the most depressing day of the year is called SAD.

Don’t know about you, but yesterday was pretty happy for me. One of the happier days, in fact. If that was supposed to be the most depressing day this year, I have a really good year looking at me

Hope you guys had a good SAD day! Now that it’s over, don’t be SAD anymore (: It’s over and the year can’t possibly get any worse (according to the SAD scientists anyway).