Of all the great gifts I received over the holidays, many of the best didn’t arrive wrapped in colorful paper, or inside cards with weird Christmas-y sexual innuendo (‘Mrs. Claus wants to know if you’re ready for your holiday surprise…’). And though I still haven’t even written all my thank-yous, I thought this might be a good time to extend my genuine thanks to those who gave gifts and didn’t even know it.

Thanks, restaurant hostess, for sending me directly into the gay wedding reception instead of to my table. The mimosas looked delicious.

Thanks, Dad, for the Supertramp MP3s.

Thanks, bouncer at the bar near where I grew up, for not starting that conversation that, yeah, I think we went to high school together.

Thanks, Apple Computer, for shipping my laptop all over the country 1) for repair, 2) for free, and 3) at my convenience.

Thanks, guys at the Houston Segway store, for letting me come back to the store, over and over, to try it out.




Thanks, Cleveland airport security, for seeing the girl with the ‘GOT GRASS?’ sticker on her CD player as hardly a threat to anything.

Thanks, Sarah, for the start of what could be a very awesome sticker collection.

Thanks, girl at the grocery store with the jerk boyfriend who absolutely wouldn’t move even an inch when I was trying to get past him in the aisle, for laughing at his misfortune when I dropped that bottle of beer and it exploded all over him.

Thanks, Jason, for still not collecting on that 20 bucks.