Do you know how you can have that feeling like you are being an adult, and are super on-top-of-things, and then all of the sudden some idiot says, “HAAAAY, what does this button do?” and then the bulldozer’s off and running, careening into one of those shops full of glass kittens and walnuts with googly eyes glued on them?

Ugh, even my metaphors are ugly and out-of-control.

ANYWAY, I received my diploma last November and I noticed right away that my name was misspelled. Did you know that a name containing only two letters could be misspelled by your university? Me neither. One year later I finally thought I got things settled.

I called them three different times and asked them to reissue it. I had a hard-ass final year in graduate school, and when they sent my diploma I was doing crappy temp work and realizing that my baby was still very much alive and in my body, despite all evidence that she had jumped ship two months before. On one hand, I was like, “Yeah, whatever, diploma, I’m busy,” and on the other I was like, “HEY I AT LEAST want my GODAMN NAME spelled right.” Are you feeling me here?

So all three times I called them they said, “Okay, we’ll reissue it with the next printing.” LIES.

Finally, I was doing some housecleaning for Fangsgiving this year, and I found it in my “non-urgent to-do” pile. Hmm, I thought. Let’s see what happens if I take this to the top dog. I wrote the King Registrar a very polite email about what had happened, and he replied with, “Yes, we will do a rush order and get this to you very quickly.” He was very apologetic and promised to investigate why I had been blown off by his office.

I got cc’d on the email to someone who actually handles the nuts and bolts of this sort of thing, and she told me that an academic hold had been placed on my account. I investigated, and it seems I am in arrears for my smallest student loan, and I owe a small sum on it. Glah! I thought I had bumped all my loans because of broke-assedness, but apparently I missed one. Man, I sure could have used a personal assistant last year. I was so stressed out I could barely remember to clip my ass horns brush my teeth.

I was going to go through the rigmarole of deferring this one too, but it is such a small amount it would be easier to start paying it. I’m just sorry they didn’t have my address sooner so I don’t have to be all arrearful. So the government found me and it turns out that Fat Tony won’t have to break my face after all. Maybe if I pay them, they will release the diploma that they fucked up and owe me in the first place. Well played, The Government. Well played.

Government: 1
Registrar’s Office: 47
SJ: half a point for stylish flailing around

In Other News: Put Down That Pop Tart First

Oh, man, I do not want to tell you what I am about to tell you, but I have to. I don’t want this to turn into one of those Poop Blogs–mostly because I feel like there are more dignified and important things to write about (such as boobies), but here goes.

This morning was crazy–my house turned into an intensive care unit dedicated to log-jam removal. Poor Strudel. She is an infrequent pooper anyway, but I have never seen her this backed up before. I was hovering over her with a glove and some non-irritating cream, to help things along. It was like a scene out of some lame, low-budget medical show. “I need some poo here, stat.” She would poop a little and then I would dress her again and she’d do a little dance in my lap with that sad, sad, confused look on her face like when your Gay High School Boyfriend breaks up with you for the last time, but you don’t realize he was gay until, like, five years after high school. All you know is that he is breaking up with you and won’t give you a reason. Why, GHSBF, why???

Finally I lay down on the couch with her and nursed her until she dozed off. She popped up ten minutes later, stinky and smiling, with a little log in her pants that was full of carpet fuzz, hair, and, I am quite ashamed to say, some lightweight, non-scratchy plastic that she narfled when I turned my head for a minute.

I think it’s time to invest in one-o-them giant hamster balls, so she can travel around the house that way. I just hope she doesn’t turn out like me; some problems can take YEARS to overcome.