It Began At Applebees...

...when the waitress came to the table and asked, "Ma'am, do you know what you want?"

I looked at this perky little thing with a blank stare and thought, Sister, I've waited my whole life to be asked this question.

Yeah, I know what I want.

First of all, I want you to stop calling me Ma'am.

I want to be sitting at a nice cafe on the Champs Elysees sipping wine at a cute little table on the terrace, not sitting in the mega-huge booth at Crapplebees underneath the air conditioning vent contaminating me with pneumonia in less time than it takes to finish this sentence.

I want to pull off a pair of Manolo Blaniks with 4" heels without looking like I could be saying, "psst... you lookin' for a date?"

Actually, I wanna be able to afford a pair of Manolo Blaniks.

I want to know why all the purses I really like cost over $3,000 and what on earth could I possibly afford to put in them if I could actually buy one?

I want the Children's Television Network to let Elmo dance and sing with Katy Perry so everyone will shut up about it already.

I want to set Paris Hilton, Lindsay Lohan, Kim Kardashian, and Snookie afloat in the middle of the ocean viking-funeral style never to return to civilization. The caveat being I also want to be a witness when they turn all "Lord of the Flies" on one another. My money is on Snookie; that girl obviously has an appetite.

I want to slap the creators of the second "Sex and The City" movie for killing the dream.

I want my children to know how awesome they really are and no, I'm not just sayin' it because I'm their Mom.

I want Sarah Palin to not "Go Rogue" but to just "Go Away".

I want my first bi-lines in Harper's Bazaar, Vanity Fair, and The New Yorker to be published at the very moment I am sitting on Oprah's couch being announced as her newest "book-of-the-month" author. Note to the editors of the aforementioned: we better get going on this...Oprah's countdown clock is ticking...

I want certain people to memorize Abraham Lincoln's pearls of wisdom, "It is better to remain silent and be thought a fool than to speak and remove all doubt." And as these certain people won't recognize themselves as such, I want to be there when they are told.

I want...

"Ma'am? Ma'am? Do you know what you want?"

Sigh...it was good for a moment.

"Yeah, I want a seltzer and a chef salad. And can you turn down the air conditioning?"