I sore on a stack of Bibles that I wouldn't t'ache today's update to talk about my weekend of moving and it pains me to go back on that, but I figured that at least I could mention how stiff I am so you'd know that I wasn't just pulling your muscle. I'll spare you the whole soredid tale, but if anyone has some pain-relieving bruise I could quaff, I could leave this world of hurt.

I'll give you a moment to cauterize that horrible introductory paragraph from your brain before continuing.

On Saturday, four of us split an apartment of two into two Apartments of One¹, near my old stomping grounds in Alexandria. One of them moved up to an efficiency on Seminary Road and the other moved into the Hamlets, by William Ramsey Elementary where I went to Kindergarten. The apartments were all overhauled and renamed with yuppy-friendly names like Brookdale, Hillwood, and Creekruncliffsloperidge (Indian name), but to me they'll always be the Hamlets. It's just like College Park in Blacksburg -- you might rename it to The Village to attract more non-college kids, but we all see those loud keggers on the third floor through your gauzy veil of obfuscation.

On Sunday, there was more miscellaneous moving and assembling, as well as a trip to Ikea to pick up the one critical piece of the Ikea bed which is sold separately. It was called a Dokka, which is Ikean for "midbeam". My move-o-meter is exhausted for at least a month, so if any of you reader-clowns are going back to college or are planning on getting evicted, I will eloquently decline to help you.

There's a massive bruise on my right forearm, about halfway between my wrist and elbow. People at work today are either going to think I was giving myself hickies, or I'm really bad at shooting up intravenous drugs, and I'm not sure which story I should lean towards. Because I lack the energy to write my original article for today, I'll leave you with a list of three people I knew who used to live in the Hamlets:

• Ali Tagoe: A guy I knew in junior high who was often forced to endure childish jokes involving his last name and food delivery. I think his mom was very strict because he wasn't allowed to come over a lot. Once I called his house and said "Is Ali there?" and his mom read me the riot act. Apparently, that's not how you're supposed to use the telephone. She told me to hang up and call again, this time saying, "Hello, this is Brian. May I please speak with Ali?"
• Ian: A close friend I had in eighth grade, after which he moved to Pennsylvania. We used to bike through the woods near Holmes Run to this abandoned dirtbike track and get all muddy jumping over all the brooks, hills, dales, runs, and creeks. During summer vacation, he would call every day and just sit on the phone all day long while he did stuff. Since this was before the advent of cordless phones and call-waiting, it was mind-numbingly dull, so I finally had my sister tell him I had gone on a month-long vacation with another friend, James Houck.
• Pat Skelly: She was the big, scary lunch lady at James K. Polk Elementary. She could walk out of the kitchen and the entire cafeteria would go radio-silent. Then she'd menacingly point at the table which was making too much noise and proclaim, "Table Two is SILENT," which meant that people at table two were no longer allowed to talk for the rest of the lunch period. She babysat my sister and I one summer -- the two of us would wander off to the Mark Winkler Botanical Preserve and play in the radioactive creek while she watched Perry Mason all day long. This familiarity meant that the following year, we could sit at the special cafeteria table and could talk all we wanted. We were so cool.
  
  Incidentally, after she left, the new lunch lady could not control the cafeteria in the least bit. They had to buy a Yacker Tracker to hang on the wall which monitored noise levels. The light would go from green to yellow to red and then a high-pitched siren would go off if things got too loud. This didn't work because everyone hated the new lady (she looked funny, which gave justifiable cause for elementary school hatred) so we all just tried to make the siren go off as often as possible.

Yesterday's search terms:
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¹: Legality of this phrase is dependent upon my successful negotiations with the U.S. Army.