The Contents of a Fed Ex Package

I left work with a Fed Ex package tonight.  I often leave work with a Fed Ex package, or with certified letters, or other things that need to go places.  Sometimes it's because something absolutely, positively has to be someplace overnight.  Other times it's because somebody's been procrastinating and the same letter that could have been sent for a 47-cent stamp is now costing $35.50.  I won't say which was the case this time, but that's because I'm such a nice person that I wouldn't accuse any of my cow orkers of procrastinating.

Anyway, I should probably mind running errands for the office after work, but I don't.  There's something kind of nifty about leaving work with a Fed Ex package.  It's that combination of white, purple and orange that says to the outside world, "Look!  I'm doing something important!  Something so critically important that it calls for a Fed Ex package!"  Which is great for the ego, especially when you've been having a string of days when you feel like you're the least important person on the planet.  Now, the Dalai Lama would argue with me about this, but there are days when I'm convinced nobody would ever miss me if I were to suddenly disappear.  If, however, I were carrying a Fed Ex package at the time I vanished into thin air, a huge multinational corporation would pull out all the stops to find me (even in thin air) and bring me and the package back to terra firma.  To do anything less would just be un-Fed Exy.

One time I had a package to be delivered to a town in Australia, and Fed Ex called me to confirm the address because they couldn't find the one I gave them on a map.  (This was before Google Earth, you understand.)  I called the client to double check.  He started laughing and asked me if I'd ever  been to Little Town, Australia.  I said no.  He said that this town had one north and south road that crossed over one east and west road, and where the two roads crossed each other, was the place the package was going.  They couldn't have missed it if they tried.  But of course they called to confirm.  Of course they did, because that's just what Fed Ex does. Fed Ex packages are important.  

(Incidentally, I'm at Afrah, the World's Greatest Mediterranean Restaurant, eating some of the Best Pita Bread on Earth and typing this.   And darned if two Buddhist monks and a nun didn't just walk in and sit down.  Does anybody know if I'm supposed to go over there and bow?  Or do I get to mind my own business?  Maybe they didn't see me.  I am, after all, hiding behind my 8 inch by 4 inch tablet.  I am practically invisible.)

Anyway, a new year has started up.  We're about 16 days into it here, and it doesn't seem too bad so far.  I started out the year getting a new cell phone after mine became possessed by the Devil and started randomly doing things I had not asked it to do.  Demonic possession of small electronics is not something to be encouraged.  So I got a new cell phone.  And while we were in the cell phone store, picking out the best cheap knockoff  my money could buy, I ran into something that I wish I'd never met, because now I want one.  The Samsung Galaxy Tab S4.

Seriously, have you seen this thing?  It's like a tablet combined with a laptop and a dash of a cell phone thrown in.  It has the Microsoft software suite, the Android applications and more features than you can shake a stick at.  Unlike my current tablet, which you have to have Wi-Fi to operate, it's always on, just like a cell phone.  You can use it at the bottom of the Grand Canyon, if they have cell service there.

I need a new laptop.  I've needed a new laptop for ages.  So, why not just forego the laptop and get the tablet instead?  I mean, the thing has the Microsoft suite, right?  Well, there's the $700 price tag, for one thing.  I can get a good used laptop for around $250.  But a used laptop isn't sleek.  It doesn't have chrome trim and megapixel display and a camera.  This tablet is sleek.  It's like a Ferrari.  A laptop--any laptop--is a Toyota Corolla in comparison.

(Don't get me wrong.  I love my Corolla.  But it's hard to pick up girls driving around in a Corolla.  At least I think that is the problem.)

Oh, I'm probably not going to get the Galaxy Tab S4.  I still need a mattress, for one thing, and once I get one of those (this weekend, back.  I swear,) I won't be able to part with the funds.  But it would be really cool to have one of these suckers.  So if any of y'all made a New Year's resolution to give overpriced gifts to total strangers for no apparent reason, that's Galaxy S4.  Through T-Mobile.

One more piece of news:  My novel writing class is starting up again next Friday.  This is pretty cool, because for a while there the novel writing class was the only thing in my life that was going well.  Matters have since improved, but I'm still excited about the novel writing class.  I seem to need other writers to bounce off of and trade stories of Galaxy S4 lust.  Cheers!