I love both of my parents for having such well-developed senses of humor. My dad in particular is never afraid to laugh until his face starts turning deep shades of red and he can no longer breathe. Sometimes, he starts coughing, and I legitimately worry that he will keel over mid-guffaw.

It brings new meaning to that whole I almost died laughing! thing.

The great thing about my parents is that they both crack themselves up all the time. Nobody else may find their jokes amusing, but they have their own built-in entertainment systems in their minds. I'm the exact same way, so I totally understand the benefit of that.

All this to say . . . I could literally hear my dad laughing at himself as he wrote me an email yesterday. I had asked him two computer questions earlier, one regarding my coworker, who was wondering if she should trust her son (Ryan) to uninstall Vista and put XP on her new computer. The other question concerned Photoshop Elements 2.0, the best the church could offer when I complained about MSPaint and told them that, no, Microsoft Publisher was not intended to be an image editing program.

Behold what happened next . . .

From: Me
To: Dad

Okay, this is what is happening to Photoshop. It's still open, but it won't show me anything other than this . . . (See attached file.)

From: Dad
To: Me

Most likely it's because your task bar is on the left side instead of the bottom. Photoshop has tried to minimize itself to the bottom but has become dazed and disoriented because there is no task bar there to hold the launch button. Try trading Ryan your XP for his Vista.

All I could do was to shake my head and sigh, knowing that my father at least brought a smile to his own face if nothing else.

I've been trying to work on my "101 Things About Me" list this week. (Note: If you missed the first installment, click here.) Unfortunately, I'm still not used to working full-time, so I'm pretty wiped when I come home. So, in a bold move, I've been saving my ideas throughout the work day to an unpublished entry, being extremely grateful that none of my coworkers are internet-savvy enough to know what Movable Type is, much less recognize the user interface of it from my monitor. Anywho, I now present you with five more things you never wanted to know.

6. I am deathly afraid of stop signs at busy intersections. I panic every time I pull up to one, thinking that I'm going to go at the wrong time and piss everyone else off.
7. My longest relationship to date was with one of my best friends' Betta fish. His name was Hercules, and we dated for a year (until his death on September 2, 2007).
8. I did not want to be a veterinarian or a teacher or an astronaut when I was a child. I wanted to be the CEO of a large corporation. I envisioned working in an office with lots of windows at the top of a skyscraper.
9. I do not like french fries, chips, or pretzels. They waste space in my stomach that could be better used for chocolate.
10. Being too close to fireworks makes me nervous because I once had a burning piece of ash land in my eye on Independence Day.

So, recently, things have gotten a little chillier here in the Chicago area. When I got home from work yesterday, it was 53ºF. One of my bedroom windows was wide open, a testament to the fact that it had been sunny and in the eighties the day before. I was too lazy to get up from my butt to shut it, so I just bundled up and sat at my desk for my daily dose of the internet.

My dad walked in a few minutes later. "It's getting colder outside," he said.

I looked up and did a shifty-eye maneuver to indicate Umm, duh.

"The temperature looks like it's gonna drop pretty significantly tonight, so I just stopped by to tell you that you can close your window if you'd like."

More eye-shifting. Did my father really just give me permission to shut my window when it got too cold in my room? Seriously?

Thankfully, my dad took the hint and left me to freeze. Fifteen minutes later, though, he was knocking on my door again. "It's getting kinda chilly in the rest of the house. Are you going to shut your window?"

This is where my stubbornness overruled my common sense. "No."

"Why not?"

"I . . . like the fresh air," I stammered.

"Well, but the other people who live here might not like being cold."

I stared at my dad, who was wearing a t-shirt and shorts. "The other people who live here could put on some pants . . ."

"Oh, I'm not cold, but your mother probably will be when she comes home."

I wasn't going to budge, especially not on behalf of my mother, who neglected to tape House last week and also threw away my second hair dryer based on faulty assumptions.

"Mmk. Just shut the door then."

Which is exactly what he did. I sat in my room, stubbornly and belligerently freezing to death for some unknown cause. I had on two shirts and a sweatshirt, a hat, pants, socks, and a humongous fuzzy blanket.

This morning? I woke up with the early signs of a cold.