Today's my third anniversary with my car. Hooray!

I'm taking it to lunch later.

Our cable in the living room was disconnected this morning. Casey turned on the TV and it said, "Your cable has been disconnected. Please call ..." and then listed the number. She asked me to call the company and see if we could get a free month for the inconvenience, no doubt thinking � as I did � that I'd be told that someone had to come out to the house tomorrow between the hours of midnight and 10 p.m. to reconnect it.

So I called and said, "You disconnected my cable, now give it back."

The woman told me to look at my cable modem, which confused me in my annoyed state.

"What??" I said.

"Does it have three steady green lights and two blinking green lights?" she asked.

"Yeah."

"OK, now go turn on your cable box."

The cable was back. Efficient bastards. I want a free month.

If it happens again, I'm getting a free month.

Then I said, "I know why this happened. I think you're trying to disconnect the person upstairs, so if you need to come back, it'd be nice if you let me know so that we can be sure you don't disconnect mine again."

"We didn't disconnect you, sir, and I can't tell you anything about another customer."

"I know, but if you need to come back ..."

"We didn't disconnect you, the signal to the box was lost."

"OK, fine."

Whatever. It said, "DISCONNECTED." Come up with another word, then.

I booted up my six-year-old Compaq Presario laptop with Windows 95 on it, searched through a couple of computer disks (remember floppies?) and found a file called "quotes" in a folder called "Mexico." I'd meant to do this before the wedding, since five of us who'd gone to Mexico for spring break '98 were there and I haven't looked at these quotes in years. Even the photo album from the trip is still in Little Silver.

So, in the interest of preserving these observations for prosperity (and not losing them to a slowly aging � and perhaps dying � Compaq), I log them here:

"I'm going to spend this vacation rubbing myself." � Bryan, while applying sunscreen on the first day

"I could mine my ass, I've got so many rocks in it." � Tony, referring to his bathing suit after getting thrown around in the Pacific surf
... which prompted us to coin the term "surf bowling"
... and to call Jamie the ocean's bitch

"If I had a pool, I'd be underwater right now." � Jamie, when Kelly started to talk psychology

"I'm a priest � anybody here want to get married?!" � some guy on the beach, who later asked "Can I keep her?" while looking at Jamie

"If I stuff money down your pants, will you go away?" � Jamie as Kelly began dancing on the booze cruise

"I'm all greased up ..." I said after applying sunscreen after lunch on the cruise
"... and nowhere to go," Jamie added.

And, of course, the Pretty Family on the cruise. They were from Argentina. They had golden skin and perfect bodies. The daughter was probably around our age (21), the son a little younger. They could've been international supermodels, all of them. The daughter probably is now.

"We need to get the cuenta and get the hell out of here." � Ann, ready to leave after one of our lunches beneath a thatched roof over the patio of a beachside restaurant

"Is anyone else revolted by 70-year-old men in Speedos?" � Kelly

"Gigi? Is that her stage name?" � Ann, about Bryan's former girlfriend

"It's like an island!" � Kelly
"Sometimes it's stormy, sometimes it's not." � Bryan
These two I noted as "having to remain 'inside'" because I'd printed out the quotes to put alongside the photos in my album. Amazingly, five years later, I still remember we were talking about Corrinne and her mood swings. Corrinne � and I'm not even sure how to spell her name anymore � was the only one from the trip not invited to the wedding. Senior year, Jamie, Kelly, Ann and Corrinne all lived together, and Kelly dated Tony, who didn't come to the wedding, probably because Kelly was there, we suspected. The other three women quickly lost touch with Corrinne after graduation.

"Ooh � she's riding that stallion." � Me, watching a group bounce along the waves on a banana boat

"This can't be possible � but the moon feels really hot on my arm." � Tony, at dinner at Felipe's up on the hill overlooking Puerta Vallarta on our last night there after we'd spent the entire day in the sun

"I think we're all in food orgasm." � Jamie, after we'd all taken our first bites at Felipe's and shut up

"You gotta blow me now?" � Kelly, to Tony as he blew on her arm