You're welcome.

Image, Toothpaste for Dinner

One of the people who works for the company that operates my cafeteria plan spent a couple days this past week fixing somebody else's screw-up. The fact that she was able to do so took me completely by surprise.

When I hadn't heard from her by day two, I figured she had left me high and dry; I was going to have to spend most of my morning trying to get her back on the line—or, barring that—explaining the problem to someone brand new so I could start the entire process over again.

Instead, she phoned at what must have been her quitting time on Friday to let me know she had taken care of the problem.

It was one of those situations where "Thank you" is appropriate, but because the other person went to so much trouble, doesn't really seem adequate.

"Thank you so much,” I said.

"That's quite all right."

"I really appreciate all the trouble you went to in clearing this up for me."

"Really--it's fine. That's what we're here for."

"Well, okay. Thanks again!"

"You bet."

"Love you."

"Love you too."

It didn't go exactly like that, but that's always my fear during these conversations—that in the flurry of sign-offs that wind down a phone call, I will slip into auto-response mode and proclaim love for a total stranger.

And as everybody knows, once you say the L-word, there's really no going back.

You and what army?

Every Tuesday night, I and several of my friends tweet through that week's episode of LOST. 

That's right. I'm a member of the LOST Twitter Army.

If those two words in the same sentence make you think less of me, then so be it.  I feel better during that hour of the week than I do at any other time.  

It's a testimony to the nature of that show that so many of our tweets aren't really repeatable here. Well, I could--but I'm somewhat ashamed of myself so I won't.  At any rate, we are almost always full of shock and awe as we watch, and our tweets are reflective of that.  As you probably already know, some of us are more shocking and awesome than others.

But for that hour, my tiny apartment is filled with my friends, and we're having that experience together. We talk on top of one another, and hook punchlines off someone else's setup, and for the most part are our very best selves.  It's fun and funny and lets everyone forget that some of us are actually physically hundreds of miles away.

And then it's over. 

In a little over a week, LOST will be over too, and all my friends really are going to be a terribly long way away.  On Tuesday nights, I'll be missing them almost as much as I will be missing my favorite show.

I'm going to hate to see it all end. Truly. 

Tell her I said, "Hey."

Muffin Uptown has a blog. She's posting about her art. If we're lucky, she'll do some writing there, too.

Yup. She's good at all those things.