2003-02-25 | 11:05 p.m.

corduroy licorice wasn't just whistling dixie. he was also whistling "of all the girls i've loved before."

***

every morning i struggle to get myself out of bed after slamming the snooze button repeatedly. every morning i swear that that night, i will go to bed early. every night i'm like a little kid who doesn't want to hit the hay. i wait until the last possible minute to crawl under the covers, always trying to squeeze a little more time out of my day.

my friend a-boy summed it up this way: "night nictate doesn't care about morning nictate. night nictate screws morning nictate over."

i think i know how dr. jekyll and mr. hyde felt.

***

i have a brand spankin' new story about my friend lm-girl's precocious little niece, sally. sally's family recently went on a weekend trip to an amusement park and stayed in a hotel across the street. the day they checked out, they left their bags at the front desk for safekeeping while they headed back to the park.

when they returned, one of their bags was missing. the hotel took down their information and promised to get them a reimbursement check within 10 days. after 10 days had passed, the mom called back and got the royal runaround. not only did the back-pedaling rep say that the check wasn't promised that quickly, she was only offering a pittance compared to the value of what was lost.

after sally's mom got off the phone, she and sally's dad had a heated discussion about the bitchy hotel employee. sally was listening to the whole exchange and when her dad stormed out to call the hotel back, sally dramatically pronounced:

"mommy, i'm going to write a letter to that hotel lady right now. i'm going to draw a picture of her."

the mom reassured sally that dad had the situation under control and that sally needed to focus on finishing her breakfast. a bit later the mom asked, "so sally, what would you draw the hotel lady doing?"

sally looked up, a bit befuddled. her breakfast munching had made her forget her earlier ire. she looked up at her mom, nose crinkled as if wondering if she'd stumbled upon the desired answer: "um, smiling?"

"honey, why would you draw her smiling when she was so mean to us?"

"oh. i know what i'm going to draw!" sally replied with determination, her righteous anger making an impressive return. a bit later she handed her mom a crayon-scrawled image of a woman with fangs and sharp claws with a spray of some kind of vile liquid coming off her head in droplets. next to the drawing was the letter, which read:

dear hotel lady,
you are bad!
love,
sally the queen

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