People say that you shouldn't judge something until you've tried it. This is generally stupid, since I already know that I hate refried beans and working at McDonald's and running marathons and green eggs. I don't need to try them. I don't want to. If it makes you feel better, though, I tried them in my head, using my imagination.

What have I really tried? Mornings. According to an internet calculator, I've tried them more than 8,000 times. I DO NOT LIKE MORNINGS. And I would like to stop trying them now.

I did not like them when I was a child and my mother would pull fiercely on the shades, laughing as the sound of the THWAP SNAP CRASH muffled the sound of my screams.

I did not like them in the summers when my mom would wake me up by dropping the cats on my face, laughing as the sound of their mewing muffled the sound of my screams.

I did not like them after I replaced the shades with blinds, when my mother would sing loud and obnoxious songs, smiling as her own voice muffled the sound of my screams.

I did not like them in high school, when my dad would come stand at the doorway and whisper my name over and over while I pretended to sleep. "Rachel. Rachel. Rachel. Rachel. Rachel, it's time to wake up. Rachel. Rachel," he chanted, while I screamed silently.

In fact, the only good thing worth associating with mornings is breakfast. I grew up reading Calvin and Hobbes every day with my bowl of cereal or my Mickey Mouse-shaped pancakes. Even the cat-shaped pancakes that looked just like the Mickey Mouse-shaped pancakes were fantastic. (The snowman-shaped ones were my favorites, though.) And I couldn't make it through the day now without my Pop-Tarts or bagels or chocolate chip pancakes. So mornings, you win. For now. But the minute someone tells me I can have breakfast for dinner, you're done.

Hey, wait a minute . . .

I'm at a place in my life where I feel incredibly insecure all the time. I grew up being "the smart girl" who excelled at school, but here I sit with several years between myself and a college degree and with a growing number of universities who don't even want to look at my transcripts. As a perfectionist, this is extremely difficult to swallow.

I try explaining to people that I really just didn't go to class at all, and they smile and nod politely. But I can tell from the sad little flicker in their eyes that they think I'm the world's biggest failure.

Hello, humility. I don't think we've met.

That said, I was extremely uncomfortable at my friend's wedding reception being surrounded by four of the smartest individuals I have ever met. The gentleman who was to my right speaks at least four languages, and his wife is fluent in several, as well. He's a college professor. They've lived in Italy. Their combined IQ would probably be around three million. Not possible, you say? Well, shut up. It's true.

Throughout the course of the evening, I did a lot of listening and a lot of learning. I have since forgotten the phrases I learned in German, French, Italian, and Spanish, but I did remember one key lesson:

If you want to really impress people, memorize the pledge of allegiance in another language.

The smart wife of the smart man to my right had committed to memory the French pledge of allegiance, but she let it slide from her tongue so elegantly that I thought she was simply making conversation. She then repeated it to me in an angrier tone, showing how she could recycle the same material with different inflections and still manage to impress people. (Only now does it occur to me that perhaps it was the American pledge of allegiance in French. Either way, it was amazing.)

Of course, anyone who is fluent in French probably wouldn't be fooled by the ruse, but it is certainly a great party trick to have on hand here in America. And by golly, that Hey, look how many rejection letters I have! trick just isn't working for me anymore, so I'm happy to replace it. What cool tricks do you have up your sleeves?

P.S. No, I do not want to know that my title actually means "there's a monkey in my pants." Ignorance is bliss.

This is how it should be. I am in the front seat, blinding people into submission. My brother is in the back seat, quietly reading manga. REMEMBER THAT, "SuperSanko," while you sit at your computer and woo the internet with 140-character quippy statements on Twitter. I AM IN THE FRONT SEAT HERE.