I’m not sure if it is genetic or just a characteristic I have developed over my lifetime, but I am one of the world’s biggest procrastinators.  This fact was made painfully aware to me prior to leaving for our vacation at the end of February.  February is my birthday month and to help you celebrate your birthday the State of Michigan allows you the pleasure of renewing your license plate tabs.  This can be done in one of three ways, through the mail, on the internet, or in person.  The mailing from the secretary of state sat unbothered for the first three weeks of February.  Finally I summoned up all my where with all to do something about renewing our vehicle tabs.  The first step was placing the mailing into my vehicle, it sat in my truck for a few days before I finally brought it into my office where it lingered on my desk for another few days.  The clock was ticking and by the time I opened up the envelope we had had a major weather event that resulted in the premature closing of all SOS offices across the state.  Fortunately for me I had the option of going on line to renew my tabs.  The problem was that my most recent vehicle prior to my truck kept popping up so I was unable to use technology to compensate for my procrastinating.

No problem, I still have Thursday to get this done in person and the SOS office I go to is a block from my office and rarely busy.  Unfortunately, the weather issue seeped into the following day and the offices were closed for the entire day.  We ended up returning from Florida in March and at that point my tabs and registration were expired.  So, I was obviously going to get right on the renewal of my tabs first thing open of business Monday, right?  Nope, I strolled into the SOS office at around 3:30 pulled a number, 99 to be exact, the clicker was at 33.  At the rate the SOS operates I was looking at sometime after Easter before my number was going to be called.  I decided to head back to my office intending on returning around 4:30 to get things taken care of once and for all.  Well, I  ended up blogging about what will eventually be an entire revamp of my blog (the way I operate this change will probably take place when my kids are nearing the completion of high school) and never made it back to the SOS office.

After a morning meeting with a client I finally wondered over to the SOS office again.  Pretty sure I am the only person with a full time (mostly full time) job and access to the internet and stamps that personally goes to the SOS.  If you want to rub elbows with the dregs of society renew your tabs in person.  Knowing what I have known about the SOS for quite sometime my biggest mistake was not bringing an industrial sized spray bottle of Fabreeze with me.  While the experience of renewing my tabs in person was not real positive, as I was at the counter writing my check to the good old State of Michigan, “Excuse me mam, how many potholes is this $330 going to fix?  “A half of a pot hole?  Really, well that’s definitely money well spent, why don’t you give me one of those recreational stickers while you are at it so I can actually get something of value out of this experience.”  Excuse me, where was I?  Oh yeah, I was at the counter and one of my most memorable Elton John songs was playing in the background.

“Hold me close I’m Tiny Dancer” was playing.  You haven’t heard of it?  It’s one of his best songs ever.  Ok, that’s not really the name of the song, but I though it was for the first 30 plus years of my life.  Makes complete sense doesn’t it, my legs are so tiny that I need you to hold me for support.  Of course what makes even more sense is that I’m tired of dancing and I need some support from you hence the actual lyrics to the song, hold me close I’m tired of dancing.  I think what was problematic for me about the lyrics is that when I’m dancing I’m so completely liquored up that I don’t get tired, I’m the energizer bunny, I have never needed anyone’s support when dancing due to exhaustion.  Of course the support of my friends to tell me to stop dancing would have been welcomed.  You would think with the advent of the camera phone someone would have video taped me bombed out of my mind getting jiggy with it to show me when I’m sober the next day.  “Jason, this really has to stop, this is what you actually look like when you dance, you are  no where close to a hybrid of John Travolta from Saturday Night Fever, Justin Timberlake, and Adam Levine that you think you are.”  (Some time in the not too distant future they will be able to take the DNA of these three people and create the most amazing human to ever dance the night away)   When I start moving my limbs somewhat in conjunction with bobbing my head that’s a warning sign that I’ve probably already had too much to drink.

When I was single I didn’t mind going to the SOS.  The reason being is that every once in awhile there was an attractive employee at the SOS that worked behind the counter.  “39, 39, 39”  “yeah that’s me sir but I’m just going to wait until that attractive women over there is free to help me, no offense but I don’t have a lot of interaction with the opposite sex, you’d understand if you saw me dance.”  This always strikes me as odd when I see an attractive person working in a job that seems should only be designated for unattractive people.

Since 7-11 no longer exists in the West Michigan area I will use that as my example so that I don’t offend anyone (I’m trying to get through an entire blog post void of any material Shirley would object to)  I’m not sure why 7-11 is now defunct in West Michigan but I love Slurpees almost as much as I love Elton John (The Elton John before he wore the powdered wig and started doing sound tracks for Disney movies, I don’t much care for that guy)On top of the Slupries, 7-11 use to also carry the Melting Moments Ice Cream Cookie Sandwiches  (I capitalized every word because they are that good)  and of course they are good they have 32 grams of fat and 59 grams of sugar per cookie, it’s a weeks worth of dessert packed into one ice cream treat.

On top of slurpees and artery clogging Ice Cream Cookie Sandwiches, 7-11 was also the place my dad would take us when we would skip church.  Every so often my mom would stay home for whatever reason and we would pretend like we went to church only to get slurpees.  (My mom doesn’t read my blog so I don’t think my dad will catch any grief for his awesome parenting)  So, obviously there was a myriad of reasons why I frequented 7-11’s across the West Michigan area.  In all of my time venturing in to their stores there is only one time I saw an attractive person working there and it caught me entirely off guard. Wait a minute, you are way too good looking to be working here, attractive people don’t have to engage in menial labor, that kind of stuff is reserved entirely for ugly deformed people who don’t have access to a shower or anything else that helps lessen their overall hideousness.  Under normal circumstances I would have gotten really nervous, been super creepy, and likely embarrassed myself in the presence of someone that attractive, but the fact that she was working at 7-11 threw me entirely off kilter and I merely paid for my slurpee and walked out of the store.

There, I think I did it, I wrote an entire blog that was unoffensive, unless your ugly, but if you’re ugly, what I say in my blog is the least of your problems.  I’m pretty sure Shirley doesn’t work with any ugly people so I shouldn’t catch any grief when she gets home tonight.