$1,492

As my job is obliquely, secondarily and tangentially involved in some tertiary way with government, I get Columbus Day off. Huzzah for smallpox!

As my children now go to a public school, this also means that they will be attending said school, as somehow we are no longer allowed to publicly celebrate the rape of a whole continent, even if in the end it gave the world Democracy, the Interwebs and Cloris Leachman. Boo, smallpox! Very bad form indeed!

Net result? I am home all day with no children. For the first time in, like, maybe ever. It might have happened when I was younger, before I had children of my own, but then one could argue I was the child I was home with at the time, so that's like a tie instead of a win.

What will I do with a full day of freedom? I have decided I will stay here and wait around for the right guy to come along and handle my unruly pipe. That's right, I have a very naughty pipe that needs some immediate, burly hands-on attention. And I'm willing to pay top dollar AND sit around all day waiting for it, God, just WAITING for it.

Sometimes smallpox doesn't sound so bad.