Well, hey there! It’s been awhile.

I started my insurance course last week, dreading it, really, because one of the girls at work said it was so dull, she required a six-pack of Red Bull every day to keep going. I don’t do dull well. Anyway, I wandered into class at eight in the morning last Monday and found a room full of people of every age, most of whom were dressed in suits. By Tuesday, everyone was in jeans, including the funny Dutch man I befriended who decided that jeans weren’t the epitome of Americans, but cargo shorts and Hawaiian shirts and SUVs were. I guess that works too. Our teacher has been working in insurance since the beginning of time (read: the 1970s) and knew his stuff extremely well. As for a description … well, as one student in class aptly put it, he reminded us of “a cross between Dan Ackroyd, Chris Farley, and the dad from American Pie, the first two only coming out when [he gets] excited.” Let’s just say he was eccentric, and from that, the class became pretty entertaining, one to which I looked forward with great anticipation save for the ungodly early starting hour.

Some of Mr. Insurance Man’s notable quotables include:

• “The harder I work, the more luck I have.”
• “I feel that people who are attractive to me are somewhat weird. My wife agrees.”
• “Don’t be fooled by the size.” Response from the token wiseass in the class: “That’s what I always say!”
• “I’m coming to the conclusion that my hands are rather small for a guy.”
• “I used to hate art class. Now, that could be either a skirt or a kilt. It’s androgynous hieroglyphics!”
• “When life gives me lemons, I add salt and tequila.”

His extensive experience also offered us some interesting - and, sometimes, downright depressing - real-life anecdotes, including one about a terminally ill cancer patient that rather made me lose my faith in the American government, erm, more so than before.

Class ended today at twelve-thirty - sad, as I’m going to miss my smoking buddies - and I took it upon myself to drive to Ghettoville, NJ (also known as Carteret, no offense to those of you who may live there) in an effort to finally collect the ‘personal effects’ that were left in my shell of a car from the salvage yard there. I can honestly say my eyes filled with tears when I saw it. Yeah, I’m a sap, but that car was my baby. I was too attached to it. I had exactly the same reaction when I dropped my phone, which had an Elvis faceplate, in the toilet. Anyway, I’d never really understood the meaning of stripped. I’m still confused as to the thieves’ motives. Everything under the hood was intact, all the engine bits that are always missing from stolen cars in movies. But … the car really was literally a shell. Everything had been torn out, from the rearview mirror (which I found under a map) to the seats to the floorboard of the trunk. Actually, you could see the dashboard from the trunk. There was nothing there, save for what I’d left (minus the case of Corona … yet another reason to fume).

For those of you who do not appreciate excessive language, please skip the following sentence.

Fucking asswiping jackass motherfucker cocksuckers, ooh man, if I could find you and castrate you before feeding your tiny dicks to your mothers …

Thank you for indulging me.

It was good to get most of my stuff back. They didn’t touch the CDs, the books (they probably wouldn’t be able to read them anyway), the clothes, two pitchers my friends and I had swiped from a bar long ago, blow-up decorative Budweiser bottles, both sets of license plates (VA and NJ), or even the two tampons in the glove compartment. Well, let’s be honest, a girl’s got to be prepared at all times, right?

Right.

Speaking of which, I’m late. That boggles the mind. Immaculate conception, anyone?

Before this thing gets any longer, I’m going to go soak in the tub and read over my notes for tomorrow’s test. Hitting the Series 66 again, baby! Ooh, the excitement.