"Welcome, please fasten your safety belt."
"Bossy wench."*

You know, I tease E2 all the time for being a gadget nut. M4 and I frequently call him "Gizmo Boy," since he has a penchant for buying things that are shiny, full of buttons, and apt to make high-pitched noises. He has a radar detector, a car CD player with a remote, a cell phone, more power tools than any almost-21-year-old should possess, and who knows what else. I think he even stole Senior Birdman's handheld Yahtzee game. He's terrible.

The thing is, though, I don't have much room to talk. I mean, I don't purchase as many of these items becaue I don't have a job that gives me free housing like he does, but I found my cordless drill in my closet a couple of days ago when I was cleaning. I took it out just to see how well the battery was doing after 6 months of being unused. I ran it down a little. Not to drill anything in, but just because I liked the noise and the spinning of the bitless drill. My favorite store in the Galleria is Brookstone, because they have those massage chairs and other weird gizmos for your house, like televisions for your shower and other useless stuff. (E2 likes The Sharper Image, because it's gizmos for everywhere, with an even higher degree of uselessness.)

Well, today, with a generous donation from the Birdman Family Foundation, I finally bought a gadget that should keep me happy for a long time: my new computer! I've been shopping since May, figuring out the gadgets-within-the-gadget. Tonight, it shall be mine! I'm really excited.

Of course, what do I want to do now that I have an übergadget? That's right, I want to buy minion gadgets for it. A car adapter, an airplane adapter, a carrying case...oh, I'm a sick, sick woman.

^{*The conversation my brother has with his radar detector every time he gets in his car.}