New Laws in Kendraspondence, USA

Howdy, all. As the mayor of Kendraspondence, USA, I'm proud of our city council for enacting the following laws. Please take note of any tax consequences as even without prior offense, we will be taxing indiscriminately.

I. Under no circumstances may any citizen or visitor of the municipality begin a sentence, verbal or written, with "Him and I/Her and I/Me and Him/Me and Her." Penalty will be total banishment for 14 days or until proper use of pronouns reinstated.

II. Under no circumstances may any citizen or visitor of the municipality use "I" as an indirect object, such as "It was important to him and I." Penalty will be standing with one's nose in a corner for 45 minutes, or until proper use of direct/indirect objects reinstated.

III. Citizenry who find out the sex of their baby and announce the name of the baby before the baby is born to the world will be given their Christmas presents without any wrapping paper since they are incapable of enjoying surprises. And the mayor will laugh haughtily, as if that were even a punishable crime.

IV. Patrons of restaurants who take calls or text on their cellphones in lieu of showing courtesy to waitstaff will be ejected from their seats and catapulted into a bin of bellybutton lint.

V. Parking in a handicapped spot anywhere in the municipality when no physical handicap restricts a driver in any way will be punishable with a fine of 43,000 hours of community service, assisting handicapped drivers/passengers enter and exit their vehicles in the pouring rain.

We shall keep the new legislative measures to five for the present. In the meantime, we will continue to celebrate weekly hammock days and eat as many antioxidants as our diets and budgets will allow.

Vows not seen in the NYT

The only way to read the Sunday NYT is to dart right for the Sunday Styles section. Otherwise you are dead inside or you are illiterate, or possibly both. Maybe you take a quick scan of whether or not you know anyone in the "Vows" pages. (I never do.)(I was born in the Midwest.)(I think these parenthetical facts are related.) Maybe you snicker at the brazen journalist who capped off the profile on one couple-to-be-wed, "The groom's previous two marriages ended in divorce." What would the hashtag for that one be? #bestwishes #threesacharm These little profiles are always so unapologetically namedroppy and vomitus. Yet they are also a rare celebration of union, against the wails of the thousands who have lost loved ones in the Phillippines this week, against the din of celebrity break-ups of the hour.

But what if they told the real story, gave us the real scoop. Here's how ours would read:

Kendra Stanton, the daughter of a redheaded mother and a silver-haired father, was married on Sunday to John Lee, the son of Mija and Jae. None of the parents have amassed great fortunes due to their Ivy league educations, though if filing taxes on time made one a rock star, these people would be a bunch of Mick Jaggers. In fairness, Kendra's father is a lawyer but prefers to reference his glory days working the steampress at Schoolbells school uniform suppliers, when he was 18.

Ms. Stanton, 24, is a serial jobhopper who is not living up to her potential and is accruing credit card debt rapidly, probably because she keeps reinvesting her profits from her part-time retail job into her wardrobe since her full-time job working with at-risk youth is making her depressed about the state of humanity. It's better than eating her feelings, because, hello, wedding dress fitting in two days! She graduated magna cum laude from a small liberal arts college on a hill that is highly obscure. She no longer remembers her major. Her parents are no longer married. They have never taken her to Europe. She doesn't know it yet but she will not be taken off the waitlist at her top law school, so she won't go after all.

Mr. Lee, 26, is an anomaly: a male, Canadian-born Korean social worker who likes fashion, frisbee and football and loves Jesus. He might actually be the only one. Like, on earth. He earned his MSW from a college that happens to be all-women for undergraduate, which was not as much of a problem as one would imagine. In his own undergraduate years, he was not the most stunning student. He did swim all four years and has the wristwatch to prove it. His parents own a dental lab, which is a useful thing for a variety of reasons, particularly for making free mouthguards for future daughters-in-law who develop TMJ for unknown reasons.

It sounds like a headline from the Onion

Woman applies for new Tennessee driver's license and receives it twenty minutes later. I know. That sounds like some impossible headline from The Onion. Like when the Supreme Court said, "Same-sex Marriage? Big Whoop. Who cares?" That was a funny headline from the spoof site.

But I bluff you not. I actually departed work today to go obtain my state driver's license, which I should have done two years and two months ago but somehow didn't (see also: unpleasant chore avoidance). Instead I flashed my Massachusetts card with pride, long after I owned real estate there.

You can imagine my dread, having this long overdue task ahead of me to complete in the middle of the work week, on Sept. 11 no less, and then 20 minutes later I receive it. In fact, they were calling my number BEFORE I had the whole application filled out. The!!

So, to review:

• I didn't arrive first thing as I was supposed to.
• My MA driver's license was due to expire so something was guaranteed to go wrong in the next week.
• I had to go straight from work which means I had to take the motorino which means I was probably going to crash on my way to get my driver's license because my life is that ironic.
• It's the Department of Motor Vehicles for crying out loud.
• All the employees were totally courteous.
• I had all the right documentation, despite fact that I can't find anything of importance ever but still find the user's manual to the baby swing that we gave away 3 years ago.
• I got my driver's license in less time than it sometimes takes to buy post-it notes at Rite-Aid.
• TWENTY MINUTES, PLAYERS!

I believe this is proof that either the Cleveland Indians are going to win the World Series this year or Jesus' return is very imminent. Possibly both.