What a Full Moon can do to a news room

I'm still learning about this whole small-town, local newspaper thing.

But apparently, full moon = big news day. And not necessarily the good kind of news. Before 11, we've already had a fire and a motorcycle crash. I'm just kind of sitting here waiting for the plagues to hit.

And, generally speaking, I kind of feel like the office is in a slight state of chaos today. Its the last day for one of our reporters, and its a Friday, which I'm sure had fed into the mess.

People in Morgan County are mean to each other. Not necessarily violent mean, but mean-spirited mean. Its just an observation from my first 5 weeks (halfway point, YAY). You would not even believe the horrible things people say to each other on message boards. Here is my favorite one. We had to take this comment down from the website...we take all the ones with profanity, violent threats or lewd comments down--

"I wouldn't piss in your ear if your brain were on fire."

Now, I'm not going to give any names or even info about the situation its about... but its quite possibly the best, most creative stupid, hateful thing anyone has ever said.

I now use it daily.

Last night I slept in Lauren's room and we played "truth or dare" while we were falling asleep --(after we watched the best movie with the most horrible ending..."the Painted Veil"-- and I dared her to say it to Dad sometime today. And it has to be a time where he's not necessarily in a joking mood...maybe even when they are arguing about something. On second thought, she should wait until the Reds are on tonight, they always put him in the worst mood. A mood so bad, that even when I tell him I'm making a phone call, my friend Joanna still got to listen to my dad's rendition of Geaorge Carlin's "seven words you can never say on television" on her voicemail.

I'm not bitter, or anything. I'm also not bitter about the fact that 10 p.m., my weeknight bedtime, is apparently the time of night he must do all things that make a lot of noise. Honk the horn in the driveway...Run the mini-steam cleaner...Yell at the reds for blowing a two-run lead...those are just a few examples.

My dear friend Nichole is getting married tomorrow in souther michigan...I get to handle the wedding registry, which I'm actually kind of pumped about. Not the actual task itself (who wants to meet 200 strangers in an hour) but the fact that I don't have to be a bridesmaid. She kept it small. After tomorrow, she's going to be Mr. Edward Burl Sponseller. Not a great name, but he's a really great guy... I like him a lot.

My mommy's coming to take me out to lunch in a few minutes... exciting stuff.