Great Expectations

I am genetically incapable of waiting patiently. The night before I started kindergarten, I went to bed, only to rise and don my red corduroy knickers and Winnie-the-Pooh shoes, go downstairs and find that my parents had not yet gone to bed. It was 10:30 pm.

When I went to Disney World at the age of 6, I woke up in the hotel at 4:30, ate my little cardboard box of Sugar Smacks, and proceeded to perch on the end of my parents’ bed and wiggle until they had to get up and take me to the Magic Kingdom.

Needless to say, most of the Christmas presents in our house growing up had finger-pokes in the paper or mysteriously loose tape before December 25th.

And now, there’s a whole week of breathless anticipation ahead of me. I don’t enjoy breathless anticipation—I have asthma. John Irving’s new novel comes out today, but I have no way of getting to the store anytime soon. Harry Potter will be released on the 16th. Lisa, A and O of "What Free Time?" fame are arriving in only a few days. And Fishsuit’s baby is refusing to exit the womb.

Argh!