What did it have for me?
“Fans of Kohl’s often ‘Like’ Walmart” – NO

“Fans of Kohl’s often ‘Like’ Toys R Us” – HELL NO

“Fans of Lands End often ‘like’ Sarah Palin” – WTF???

Wow, Facebook. You don’t know me at all, do you?

Therefore, I give you the following:

Dear 20 Year Old LaineyD:

First of all, it’s sorely tempting to just write “RUN!” and call it a day, but I won’t. (Ditto “STAY OFF THE INTERNET!”). So, 13 years in the future, let me just say that there are things you don’t want at age 20 but you might want them later, so don’t be surprised when it happens (or not). Choose wisely because sometimes people say they want things but are actually big fucking liars.

Here’s a big “Don’t”: Don’t think you’re different from the others. You’re not. You’re just like them. Again, don’t be surprised when this happens. Try to reduce the smug/judgmental side of yourself just a hair, OK?

Strongly consider changing your major right now. Yeah, journalism sounds great – notice how you’re not actually practicing journalism at the collegiate level? If you don’t have the cajones to write for the school paper at Ball State, you’re never going to get it together to write professionally. Get a degree in something vaguely useable because you only get one gratis college degree (if you’re lucky, and you are). Try not to squander every opportunity and/or Get Out of Jail Free card that life hands you.

Speaking of jail, you know who is a very bad person. Try to remove that person from your life NOW. I know it sounds all glamorous, but, honey, he was 48 when we were 16. That’s not glam, that’s straight up chi-mo territory.

Turning 30 sucks just as much as you think it does – but soon you’ll see the rise of a group of women called “celebutantes.” The good news is that they’ll all turn 30, too. You’ll still be older than them but they’ll look older than you. You win.

Anyway, keep on with what you’re doing. In the absolute vast majority of ways, you’re doing fine. Here are some bits of gossip for you: Guess who’s been married two times (as of late May 2010)? No, really, guess! Yes, I KNOW! You take some bullets, you dodge some, I guess (so much for ditching the smug stuff, eh?). Oh, and go find 20 year old Brandy and tell her she’ll be driving a mini-van with her 3 babies inside. Exactly zero of them are fathered by Christian Slater, but it turns out she dodged a bullet too.

Much love,

LaineyD, Age 33

PS: Seriously. Stay off the internet. Unless you’re inventing something called Facebook, you should probably be studying anyway.

Well, you can count me as one who joined in the last few years but was NOT fine. Boo, hiss! However, they had a neato thing where I could chat live with a real live technical person (I hope he was real, live and really named Ian) and “Ian” told me my version of PHP was old. Oh well. He fixed it. Yay “Ian”! Yay for never having to really troubleshoot tech stuff for my blog!

What the FUCK was THAT?
(Hey, look, a post NOT about W-2s or babies!)

Am I safe to assume that they are saying what color underwear they have on?

I was very good and did not spend ANY money on Black Friday (it helps that I was working from 9-5, so I didn’t even think of trying midnight shopping again).

(Not that I would have, actually, as Gene made it clear that he did midnight shopping once and would never do it again).

Black Saturday, however…

As a side bar, here are some things to note:

1) I am out of perfume.

2) Because I have so many rules about perfume, I have decided to stick to J’Adore Dior (the spray bottle of the eau de parfum costs about $80).

3) Which is awfully expensive, even as a gift

4) The Almighty D gave me an eBay gift card for my birthday, which has burned a hole in my purse now for 8 months

So, back to the stupidest story you’ll hear today. I got the idea to try eBay for my perfume. D has purchased different fragrances online and she’s always had good luck. I found a decent seller with good feedback, etc, and eventually won an auction for around $30. Used D’s gift card for this, only out $10 or so from my Paypal account. Feelin’ good.

But then, this evening, apparently I took leave of every good bit of sense I’ve developed in 32 29 years of living and for some reason, I went back to eBay and searched for zhu zhu pets. (Apparently Zhu Zhu pets are this year’s hot Xmas item. They are stuffed hamsters. That is all I know). I’m a girl who lives dangerously, so I bid on one of the hamsters in an auction that only had a few seconds to go. Bid too slowly and the auction ended. Tried again. Bid too slowly again. Looked for a nearly finished auction with 30 seconds or so to go. Tried again. Bid perfectly.

Crap.

OMFG, I bought a Zhu Zhu pet. Sometime this week, a white stuffed hamster is going to be delivered to my house. And yes, I am going to resell it. Not because I’m an asshole (well, not entirely), but because I do not want a white stuffed hamster.

(Seriously. If any of you would like a white Zhu Zhu pet hamster, let me know. I’m not going to give it away but I want it out of my house ASAP and I would like to not lose my ::cough:: investment).

Someone needs to take away my internet connection.

So if I had a billion dollars I would buy Facebook so I could make the following rule:

“Profile pictures must be of a person and not your cats, cars, or adorable twin babies. Your cat and babies sure look cute but eventually you’ll end up under ‘Suggestions’ with the caption ‘you and Bob both went to Central High*’ and everyone who went to Central High will say to themselves, ‘Gee, I don’t remember a 3 month old in the graduating class at good ol’ Central High.’ Pictures of you holding the baby or cats are fine.”

(I promise it’s not the 3 month old part that annoys me. It could be a profile picture of a particularly attractive jelly doughnut – echh, jelly doughnuts – and I would feel the same way).

* Central High = generic name of course… Google n’ all, right?