Toasted Waffles

A couple days ago me and my husband, Kalyn, were making breakfast together.  While I scrambled up some eggs he took care of toasting some waffles that I had taken out of the freezer (we made mass amounts of waffles a couple weeks ago to freeze so we wouldn't have to make a big mess of the kitchen quite so often).  This is how it turned out:
"Ashley, why did you only get one waffle out for me?"
"That's seriously only one waffle?" I said, looking up from the stove.  "I thought that was two stuck together.  That thing is so thick!"  I did recall trying to fit a bit too much waffle batter into the iron when we first made them.
"It's only one, see?"  He held it up. "I'm going to get another one."
Kalyn microwaved his waffles for a few seconds to soften them, then he walked over next to me to put them in the toaster.  He held the fat waffle over the opening for a moment, sizing it up.  After a moment of thought he proceeded to squish it in.
"Uh... Sweetheart?  I don't think that will fit in there."
"Don't worry, it fits.  See?"
"Yes, but how will you get it out again?"
"Don't you worry.  I'll get it back out."
"In one piece?"
"Of course!"  He grinned at me.
It took less than 15 seconds of toasting before we saw smoke rising out of the toaster.  As I suspected would happen, when Kalyn turned the knob to "Stop" to manually pop the toaster, the chunky waffle stubbornly stuck fast inside the hole.  Kalyn tried to dig it out with a knife, but it was still pretty soft.  It came out crumb by smokey crumb.
"Are you mad at me?" he asked.
"Actually I think it's pretty funny."
When he finally got as much out of the toaster as possible, I toasted my waffles.  It started smoking again, so I looked inside.  There were still little flecks of Kalyn's waffle stuck in the burners and they were burning off with a lot of smelly smoke.  I turned to him and said, "It looks like I get smoked waffles for breakfast this morning!"
I don't think he appreciated that.

Homework of An English Major

I just finished reading the longest story of my life--or rather... listening to it.  I am in three English classes right now and all of them are 300-level classes.  I think it's safe to say that I have a whole lot of reading to do.  On of my teachers told the class about a website called "Librivox.org" where you can listen to any story that is not copyrighted (I believe that's anything written before 1914) as an MP3.  You cannot imagine my joy at this when I looked at the reading for my other American Lit class.  It was a 45-page long story, and this is certainly not Children's Literature class anymore.  There were small print, small margins and not a single picture.  Luckily I was able to listen to the story off of the internet while following along every once in a while.  For a time I got up and made caramel popcorn in order to cheer up my soul as much as is possible while listening to a story about a woman who was captured by Indians and watched their brutality towards many other captives.  After about two and a half hours and the reassurance that the woman survived and was happy again, I felt satisfied and calm.  Then I realized I still have three more classes to do homework for, plus a presentation to prepare in the next two days.  It is so good to be back in school keeping my brain busy!

Unhappy? Go Back To High School

Oh college... What a blessing it is to be here starting classes again after my brain getting filled with mush over the summer break! I mean that too.  Mushy brains make me feel unproductive, tired, and lazy.  One of my Facebook friends posted a picture today that said, "Homework: because 7 hours of class wasn't enough!"  Well, with that attitude of course you need homework, because you probably were so busy grumbling during class that you didn't learn anything.  Didn't we graduate high school and move on to a higher education for a reason?  I am amazed at how much people complain about classes when they are paying several thousand dollars or more per semester of school.  I don't know about the rest of the college student population, but I think I'll get the most I can for my money.  On that note, I am staring at my open 1,500-page book instead of reading it for class tomorrow (don't have a heart attack, I don't have to read it all by tomorrow)... Have a great, non-complaining, non-foot-dragging, happy, happy day!

P.S.  I apologize for not writing for a few weeks.  I assure you I had good reason!  I got married, went on a honeymoon with the love of my life, and was busy moving into a new apartment and getting ready for school to start.  I will be more diligent now :)

Robots

I don't know how many people have seen the movie "iRobot," but just in case you haven't here is a short overview of the plot:  It's about a robot that is created that is sort of an intelligence to all other robots.  The robots are used to serve humans and were designed to protect us.  However, the robot intelligence evolves and starts creating robots that go so far in wanting to protect humans that they want to lock them all up and completely control them.  They do this with violence if necessary.  I liked the movie and even have speculated on whether or not technology will one day rule the way it did in the movie.  After today I feel completely at peace about it though.  I called two different businesses that both answered me with a machine and a menu.  The bank had the "smartest" machine voice.  In this one it asks you to speak into the phone and tell you what you want.  Pretty incredible!  This allows people to check their account without even talking to a real person. Great, right? Not!  I spent 15 minutes trying to figure out the right words to get the robot to understand that I wanted to talk to a person about my account.  I told it I had questions, that I wanted to talk to a person, and that I was tired of listening to its robotic, confused voice.  Finally I called my mom to ask her how to get past the machine.  When she answered I almost shouted, "Holy goodness!  It is so good to hear the voice of a real person again!"  However, I contained myself.  She told me that if you keep saying "customer service" it will eventually lead you to the operator.  How helpful real people can be.  I love that when talking to a real person they have the ability to understand what you are saying and give you the correct information to fix your problem.  I was feeling even more happy about talking to real people when I got a hold of an operator who kindly answered all my questions that I could never have learned the answers to from a robot.  I don't think robots have come to a point where they can take over the world quite yet, so don't be worrying about iRobot coming true.

The Longest Two Weeks of My Life

Have you ever noticed that when you are waiting for something, time slows down like someone hitting the water in a belly flop? It's just as painful to wait as it is to hit the water too.  I would take the few minutes of red, burning skin and wind knocked out of me if this next two weeks would fly by a little faster.  I am getting married a week from Saturday, and I'm telling you the clocks have physically slowed down and they are laughing in my face as they do it.  Earlier today someone left one minute and 59 seconds on the microwave.  I walked into the kitchen and my heart gave a leap.

 "It's already two o'clock!" I gasped, so relieved that time was speeding up today.  My roommate, Vanessa, looked over at the clock.

 "I guess so!"

I ran to go take a shower and get myself clean and ready, because I was getting bridals done at 6:30.  It was only after I got out of the shower and looked at my phone that I realized what time it was.  I read, "12:57."  Crap.  It was all a lie.  It has always been a peeve of mine when people leave time on the microwave.  I felt so cheated.  When I came back into the living room Vanessa said, "Hey it's actually only 1:00.  I looked back at the clock and wondered why it had been 1:59 for the past ten minutes!"  My fiance is always trying to convince me that inanimate objects can't be 'out to get me' because they are only objects and have no minds of their own.  This mean trick from the microwave does not have me convinced though.  Do you see what such slow time is doing to my brain?  I am imagining microwaves being purposely malicious.  Once the wedding is over and time speeds up again maybe objects won't be out to get me anymore... maybe.

Prayers

Not everyone believes in prayer  Not everyone who believes in prayer has the same belief about it either.  Some people think that God hears your prayers.  Some think that prayer is strictly traditional.  Think of all the different ways people pray.  Sometimes they are memorized prayers, but other times they are less structured.  Personally, I believe that God not only hears every prayer but he also answers them.  For at least the last two or three weeks I have been agonizing over something that would possibly lead to the loss of a friendship.  Because of how I am, I can not simply act on anger or hurt without thinking it through first to make sure I am doing the right thing.  However, in my case this time, the more I thought about my dilemma, the more confused and hurt I became.  I was soon to a point of feeling incredibly tied up and could  not come to any right decision.  There was only one thing left I could think of to do to fix the pain inside of me that was getting worse by the day.  That night when I got on my knees to pray to my God I poured out my heart to him.  I explained that I was feeling a lot of pain and could no longer control it.  I told Him about how helpless I felt in my situation.  I told him that this could potentially make my wedding day less special than it should be, and I wanted to be absolutely, ridiculously happy on that day.  I explained how much weight I felt pressing on me.  Finally, I asked if He could take my burden away.  I do not do this very often.  I feel like trials make you stronger and can lead to happiness, but this one was too much for me at this time.  He knew it too, because the next morning when I woke up I felt utterly weightless.  I was relaxed and happy.  I literally felt like two big hands had previously been squeezing my lungs and overnight had disappeared.  To some people that small thing would not convince them that God is real and cares deeply about them, but I know without a shadow of a doubt that God loves me and still performs miracles for us when we need it.  He cares about tiny problems just as much as big ones.  You do not need to wait until you are in deep problems to pray to your God.  He will listen to even the smallest query if it means a lot to you.  No one else knows your heart better than He does, so he will always do what is best for you.  This week I experienced a tiny miracle that made me feel such powerful love from God.  If no one else in the world loves me, I know my God still will.

So You Think You're Poor, Huh?

I often hear the phrase, "I am a poor, college student," while I am on campus (or for that matter, even off campus).  Then that same person pulls out their new ipad or iphone for class.  Am I wrong for raising my eyebrows at this?  There are people in other countries living off $2 a day on average, or less.  Not that you have to be to that point in order to be poor.  I have felt poor before, but that's because I had $20 left in my account and about three weeks left in the semester with no job.  I felt justified in saying I was poor at that time.  I even feel justified in saying I'll be poor at least for the first few years of being married, because it's very likely my husband and I both will be working two jobs and need financial aid in order to support us through school.  I feel rich at the same time though, because there are things that are more like treasure than money.  Marrying the love of my life will make me feel richer.  Having a wonderful family and in-laws will make me feel richer.  Sitting down to dinner with my husband-- even in our very busy lives-- every day will make me feel happy, and rich.

I certainly feel irritated though when a kid who has their college tuition paid for, has a decent car, has an ipad or iphone, has a sturdy roof over their head, and still has money left over to buy a bunch of frozen dinners and fast food on a daily basis is complaining about being poor.  How about just saying, "I sure am grateful for all that I have."  It really isn't hard.  Try telling people who stand on a corner or dig through trash for food that you are poor. That would be a laugh!

Cheering Yourself Up

Have you ever noticed that almost every joke we tell involves making fun of someone, someone getting hurt really bad, or even someone dying?  If most of these things were to happen to us in real life or to a person close to us it wouldn't be even a little funny.  It would probably make us feel angry, hurt, or possibly bring us to tears.  And yet, we manage to take the most horrible things and make them funny.  Here is a blonde joke as an example: 

How do you kill a blonde?

You put a scratch and sniff sticker at the bottom of a swimming pool.

Horrible right? No! It's actually kind of hilarious.  So I figured why not use this theory on real life?  I have been feeling extremely conflicted about a situation that has come up in my life and for the life of me could not find anything about it funny.  Then at the same time as thinking about my conflict, a random thought popped into my head that was absolutely hilarious.  I laughed out loud as I was walking up to my apartment.  It was the weirdest thing I have felt in my entire life.  Complete despair evenly mixed with insane hilarity.  I think I stopped breathing for a minute because of it.  I decided then that that is how some people can be so optimistic all the time.  When they are bummed about something they twist it so it doesn't sound as bad as it is.  If they twist it enough or see it with a different perspective I'll bet they could even find a horrible situation funny.  Maybe this thing I'm struggling with will not be as bad as I thought.  Who knows, it might turn out worse than I thought, but when it's over I can find something else to laugh about later to cheer me up.

Freedom

What exactly is freedom? Everyone seems to have a different idea of what it is.  Some people think it is being able to do whatever you want, whenever you want.  "I do what I want!"  It's the ability to have protection over your own property.  It's the right to say what you think and feel without being arrested for it. It's the safety of practicing whatever religion you want to.  The list goes on.  Today I had a thought though, when a friend of mine was sued for something he is innocent of.  The story was greatly exaggerated in order to make it sound like a problem in the first place.  This is the second time these people have sued him for the same thing.  He is a college student who is working and going to school.  He is not made of money.  He is getting married later this month though, and faces a $10,000 charge for something he is not guilty of.  But hey!  The guy who is suing him has every right to sue my friend, yes?  Who cares that he is a chiropractor with plenty of income.  He has the freedom to sue an innocent college student for the cost of living probably for over a year.

And this is what got me thinking about what really gives someone freedom, and that is responsibility.  If people would simply take blame when they were in the wrong and deal with problems accordingly, they would truly be free.  Sure, we have rights surrounding our property, but we often hear about vandalizing or destruction of each others property.  We sure as heck are allowed to say what we are thinking and feeling without being arrested, but people are attacked for expressing themselves.  We can practice the religion of our choice, but people persecute each other for having different beliefs.  Is that true freedom?  I don't think so.  People need to be responsible.  They have to think more about the consequences of their actions.  They have to realize that freedoms are a privilege, not something everyone is entitled to.  If everyone in the world simply took responsibility, there would be so many less problems in it.

Irony

I clean a walk-in clinic after it closes during the week.  I have a routine down to make sure I don't forget anything and get it done quickly.  Last night I wasn't feeling all that great, and I wasn't happy to be cleaning.  Don't get me wrong, I love the job.  I can go to work in my pajamas if I wanted.  I listen to music, and if I need to I can answer my phone.  I don't have to deal with cranky customers.  When I was getting near the end of my routine last night a song from the movie "Enchanted" came on.  It's the one called "Happy Working Song" that Giselle sings while she cleans her rescuer's apartment.  I started imagining myself cleaning Giselle-style.  If only I could just sing and have rats, birds, and bugs come do my work for me.  Perhaps, it would be slightly creepy, but pretty awesome at the same time.

Fish That Nibble Your Toes

This weekend I went to a river with a group of friends to go swimming.  It's nearly into the 90's everyday now, so we are practically melting.  The water wasn't even very cold, considering it was a river.  Hundreds of little fish infest it.  You can see them swimming around in the shallow water at the bank.  Kalyn and I had been there the day before, so we showed our friends that if you stand still for a minute about thigh-deep in the water, the fish come start nibbling at your feet.  It tickles a little bit and feels pretty strange when you aren't used to it, but they are harmless.  My friend, Meesh, made a noise between a squeal and a screech when they came up to her, because it took her by surprise.  She ended up sitting in the water for a long time, though, letting them nibble away. I think they fascinated her.  Me and Kalyn will probably go there almost every day now that it's hot.  I love the sound of the water.  I have to work on skipping rocks anyways.  It's not a skill I have mastered yet.

Ninja-like Surprises

I keep telling Kalyn that I'm a ninja, but he doesn't believe me, because I have to be the least sneaky person on the planet.  I don't have the ability to lie.  I don't really even know how.  I get so excited about stuff that I give myself away miles before I could catch someone off guard.  However, after this weekend maybe he will believe me, because I definitely surprised him.  It was his birthday and I wanted to do something special for the person who is so special to me.  I had planned something days before, but hadn't worked out the kinks until last minute.  Here is how it happened:

I left church early to cook him dinner.  He knew I was making dinner, but he thought we were eating over at my apartment.  Ha! He thought wrong! I sent him a message about the time I would've been out of church saying I wanted to show him something before dinner.  I think this scared him a little.  It was his birthday, after all, and people have weird things done to them on birthdays.  My car was still parked at his apartment complex, but I went to pick it up really quick.  I had a couple of my roommates come with me to help me set out a blanket and cooler full of food in a fort on a small island in a nature park near our apartments. They stayed and watched the food to make sure no one touched it until I sent them a text saying I was on my way back.

I got to Kalyn's apartment to pick him up, and we drove out to the nature park.  I told him that Amy had shown me something the other day that I wanted him to see.  He didn't say much, but I think he was feeling nervous, especially when we got onto the island and I told him to close his eyes.  He did so while I led him to the fort made of large branches.  I turned him so his back was to it and said, "Turn around and look how cool this fort is!"  When he turned he saw the blanket and cooler and it all came together.  "So we are having dinner here?" He asked.  He looked happy, and that made me happy.  We ate dinner in the fort and then I gave him a scrapbook I made of things we have done together.  It has blank pages at the end so I can add to it when we get married and have more adventures.

We went on a barefoot walk after that and spent the evening talking and laughing and looking at turtles and snakes in the park.  I can only remember a few rare occasions when I felt so incredibly happy as I did then.  I think it hits me more and more every day that I am going to marry this man who is my best friend.  I can't wait to spend my life with him.  I hope he had as good of a day as me, because everyone deserves a good day on their birthday.

Hikes, Kites, and Jumping Off Bridges

On Saturday I went hiking with my fiance and my five roommates at Kelly Canyon.  I wasn't expecting anything hard, because Meesh had hiked there before and said, "It's paved pretty much the whole way."  On the drive down we had a two-car caravan.  Of course when you are college students, having your friends in the car behind you can be very distracting.  Meesh kept sticking her head all the way out the window to yell things to Brynn, who had her head all the way out the window of the other car.  We were all laughing about it.  It was hard for me to drive normal since we were on back roads with no other cars around.  I kept jerking the steering wheel back and forth to make sure everyone stayed awake.  Meesh thought I was going to kill them, but I had it all under control.

When we got to the trail head we all got out of the cars and began our assent of the mountain.  It was indeed paved... at least for the first ten minutes of walking.  After that it turned into gravel, and after that a dirt trail that was hardly distinguishable and was so steep that we had to walk on our toes to get up it.  Amy took one look at the steep hill made of dust and rocks, and then another look at her shoes.  They were certainly appropriate for a "pretty much all paved" trail, but a dirt hill could send her sliding with every step.  We convinced her to keep coming anyways, but helped her out when she needed it. We passed a pile of deer turds and I exclaimed, "Look! There is wildlife here!"  Seeing animals is one of the best parts about hiking after all.  We had previously seen a gecko and the foot of a deer.... only the foot and part of the leg.  Who knows what happened to the rest of it?

On that note, we ate lunch on a huge rock almost at the top of the mountain, enjoying the view of green fields and tiny ant-like people who were still on the lower trails.  After we felt sufficiently full of sandwiches, chips, and carrots, we started the slow decent of the hill, trying not to slip.  Everyone made it safely, but we took the wrong trail on the way down and almost added a lot of distance onto our hike.  Amy, Meesh, me, and my fiance, Kalyn (Cal-in), reached the bottom first.  We were quickly distracted by the canal next to the parking lot while we waited for the other three.  By the time the others joined us a crazy idea was entering my mind.  "I kinda feel like jumping in," I said.  Oops, I said that aloud!  We were standing on a bridge that was about five feet over the water.  "Want to?"  Kalyn asked.  He was getting the same crazy idea too.  Next thing I know, we have removed our shoes and are hanging over the bridge counting to three.  Kalyn went first, then me, followed by Abbie, then Hannah.  Boy, was it chilly in that water, but since it was nearly 90 degrees outside it felt so good to be wet when we got back onto dry ground.  Kalyn and I want to go swimming this weekend.  I can't wait!

Two Things

I have two things to talk about today.  One is something I was thinking about in one of my classes today.  Since that is a more serious topic and I try to keep this blog a little lighter and somewhat funny, I will tell a slightly embarrassing story so I stick to my goal, which is to make people smile.

First, what I was thinking about in class.  It is a class called "Capstone" where we discuss issues from real life.  It's designed to get people thinking about viewpoint aside from their own and develop an opinion based off of research rather than what we've heard or how we feel.  It's pretty interesting sometimes, but a little tense too, because we are presented with topics such as gay marriage or illegal immigration or leaving a relationship for whatever reason.  It gives you case studies where you are supposed to put yourself into the position of someone and decide what you would do if you were them.  All the cases are designed so there is not one right or wrong answer.

When we discussed the case on illegal immigration the topic of racism came up.  Everyone kept going on and on about how we view people of a different race different and how wrong that is, because we should all be equal.  I disagreed.  I feel like differences should be celebrated.  Then today we were discussing gay or lesbian lifestyles.  This was an interesting topic since I go to a religious school.  The longer I am in this class, the more annoyed I get with the people in my class.  At work tonight I was trying to figure out what was bothering me.  I realized this:  People are constantly talking about how "we judge that  person, because he is gay and that's against our religion" or "we hate such-and-such race of people, because we notice they are different."  The thought keeps coming to me that people only hate each other if they are looking for something that is wrong with them.  We are afraid of the unknown, so when someone is different we treat them different.  It's a natural instinct.  I don't think it's fair, though, to say all Christians are being any more judgmental than someone who isn't Christian.  We just judge differently.  We were taught different beliefs, and naturally will use those when we are making decisions.  Of course there are some Christians who automatically will dislike someone when they find out they are gay, or will judge someone for getting an abortion as a murderer.  That doesn't mean all of them are like that.  I feel like I am kind to everyone whether they are homeless, gay, straight, black, white, married, single, mentally challenged, etc.   People simply have to choose to be kind to each other and respect each other and so many problems in this worl would be gone.

That is the end of my rant.  Now let's talk about how I was running out to my car the other night and tried sticking the key in the lock with a bit of trouble.  It would only go halfway in, much to my confusion.  I then realized there was an unfamiliar sticker on the window.  This was not my car!  I looked around me to make sure no one saw me unintentionally trying to break into someone else's car, ran two more spaces down the lot, and got into my own car.  Phew, no one saw me...

Applying School to Real Life?

I am taking a class called "The American Epidemic" right now.  It's about lifestyle diseases such as diabetes and obesity, and how to prevent them from happening to you.  Today we were discussing the difference between type 1 and type 2 diabetes.  The main difference is that type 1 comes at a younger age, because for whatever reason (whether from an infection or because of heredity) the body stops producing insulin.  Type 2 appears because of your choice in diet, or living a lifestyle with little to no exercise.  I kept thinking to myself in class about how horrible it would be to have to watch your diet so closely all the time.  I know this from experience, because I am gluten-intolerant.  I feel like that is a small curse compared to diabetes though.  I don't have to check my blood-sugar levels multiple times a day or give myself shots.  All I have to do is eliminate foods that I wish I could eat.

After class I went home, starving.  I couldn't think of anything to eat so I decided to make myself some Orville Redenbacher caramel popcorn.  I ate the entire bowl single-handed.  I think I should go on the Fail Blog seeing as that is the worse thing to eat after an hour lecture on how you can get diabetes.  There is some room for improvement here, I think.

Marathons... Ouch!

On Saturday I ran my first marathon.  My roommate and my fiance ran it too.  My roommate, Meesh, ran it in 4 hours and six minutes.  For her first marathon that is incredible!  It took me and Kalyn 5 hours and 20 minutes.  Not bad for the first either.  Let me tell you, running 26.2 miles is no easy task.  It takes months of preparation for hours a week.  You have to learn to manage your time really well.  Kalyn and I went to see "The Hunger Games" later in the day after we were done running.  On our way out of the movie we looked like a couple of old gimps.  On an average day if I was hurting that much I would have leaned a lot of my weight on Kalyn or he would've just carried me to the car, but since he was in just as much pain as I was, we had to slowly hobble out of the theater and across the parking lot.  While we were shuffling our way to the car Kalyn turned to me and said, "So this is what we will look like when we are 80."  We both laughed so hard that I almost had to stop walking, because when you can't bend your knees or stand up straight, laughing and walking at the same time is a difficult task.

Today is Tuesday and my legs still hurt, but I can almost walk like a 20-year-old again.  A couple hours ago I was looking at the race results.  I discovered that if I ran just a little slower than my pace from high school cross country, I would have been in the top ten runners of the 10K, and the top 25 of the 5K, male or female.  I couldn't help but think to myself, "What the heck did I run a flipping marathon for? I should have run the 6-mile race and won it!"  Not to mention the fact that my legs would feel completely better by now and I could go out and run again.  Perhaps next year...

Just Talking to Myself

Earlier this morning I was having a very in-depth conversation with myself in my head while I got ready for the day.  I found myself asking myself, "You know what I mean?" when I came to a halt in the conversation.  I then responded, "Well of course I know what I mean.  I am talking to myself!"  I then went into a fit of laughter in my head.  Thank goodness no one can read my thoughts.  At times like that a mind-reader would find me absolutely ridiculous.  I wouldn't blame them.

I Wish Dragons Were Real

I have always wanted a dragon for a pet.  I think it would be the most amazing thing ever!  Let's set aside the fact that they breathe fire that destroys everything in its path.  Let's ignore those huge fangs and the enormous size of the dragon itself.  Let's pretend they are not dangerous in the first place.  If I had a pet dragon it would be even better than having a dog (and having a dog sounds pretty great to me too).  Imagine for a second that your neighborhood has had some break-ins lately.  Are you feeling a little more cautious about locking the dead-bolt as you leave the house?  Well I'm not, because I just leave the burglar to the mercy of my pet dragon, Zillasaur who is feeling in a slightly cross mood today.  When I come home she is no longer feeling cranky, because she just had a lovely snack.  I pat her on the nose and she gives me that sweet, toothy smile.  "Zillasaur, you have a shoe stuck in your teeth!  Where did that come from?" I ask, and then it hits me.  I left the door unlocked, didn't I? Oops! I guess the neighborhood thief had no idea that unless you shout, "Zillasaur, I'm home!" when you walk in the door, she will automatically view you as a threat and eat you up like Scooby eats a Scooby Snack.  A dragon would be so much better than an alarm system.

Later that day I realize that I am late to work, so I call on my pet dragon, Zillasaur to give me a lift.  I climb on her back and giver her a friendly pat.  "Zilla, I am late for work," I say.  She jumps into the air and flies me there in a matter of minutes, because we avoided all those nasty stop signs and traffic lights.  My boss is so impressed with me for always being punctual and having a cool pet and decides to give me a raise.

Okay, maybe that's a stretch. I still want a pet dragon though.