It's all downhill from here; please keep your hands and feet inside the cart as long as it is in motion.

Sometimes it takes a couple months for me to put a story into perspective. While relaying this exchange to Tawana last weekend, I had what can only be described as an epiphany. It was probably my last one. Ever.

Back when Spiderman 3 was being advertised, Muffin Uptown and The Boy and I were watching television one evening. After viewing the trailer for the movie (which these people just sat there and watched with slackjawed awe), I asked what seemed to me to be a perfectly reasonable question. Indeed, it was a question that occurred to me each and every previous time I had seen this trailer. I asked these people, because so much of the time these days, they seem to know everything.

"Hey! What's with the backward E?"

Insert one of those 2.5 seconds of silence here.

"Oh, my gosh! Mom, that's a three! Like in Spiderman Three!"

Well, sure--when you put it like that. But when I opened my mouth to ask the question, it was very clearly a backward E.

And that feeling I had right then, after I had asked what was, to everyone but me, so clearly the wrong question--that feeling is one I need to get used to. Because some day in the not-too-distant future, I'm going to look up and ask "I'm sorry; do I know you?"

And the answer will be, "Sure you do Mom, it's me."