I had morning shower wars with my neighbor. I don't know what's going on in there, but this person takes six showers a day. I kid you not. I was rinsing the conditioner out of my hair when he turned on his shower, and mine jumped to scalding hot in an instant. I backed away and cranked up the cold a bit until it was comfortable again. Wary, I stepped into the spray and tilted my head back, just in time for the water to turn icy cold. "GAH!"

I wanted to pound on the wall and yell, "Give me a minute to rinse my hair, for pete's sake! Christ on a pony!" But we know how thick these walls are. So I found a medium warm, rinsed as fast as I could, and got the hell out. Bastard.

I called student accounts about the hold on my account, hoping to avoid waiting in lines. I got a sleepy, unenthusiastic kid who turned out to be efficient and friendly. Book, judge, cover, etc. She said we owed a whopper of a balance, something in the vicinity of $5,000. Yes, they'd received the earlier payment, but more was due. It took me a minute to think it out. Morning brain.

D'oh! "That's full-time tuition," I said. "I'm a part-time student."

Clicking of computer keys. "Okay, hold for a minute?" No problem. When she came back, she said it was cleared up and I should be able to find out my class locations by logging on to my college account. I thanked her, hung up, logged on to my college account, and voila, there it was.

I love the internet.

So here I am with my back-to-school haircut (same as always, just neatly trimmed) and warm clothes (wind chill advisory) and backpack, and at noon I will be sitting in my Rhetorical Theory class, looking like a bad episode of "thirtysomething" and wondering what the kids think about my presence in their space.

Stay tuned.