MS. OBVIOUSA McOBVIOUS, GIRL REPORTER
I had a bad, bad morning this morning. Or maybe I should say, I had a bad, bad night last night. Due to the post-binge alcohol sugar buzz weight of work and writing on my shoulders, I woke at 1:30 AM... and could not get back to sleep. I finally surrendered to the reality of Tuesday at 3:00 AM.

Which sucks, by the way. While most of you were still getting ready for bed, I was wide awake. This middle-age thing -- which, thanks to Jeff and Gothamist, I guess I have to admit I've hit -- isn't pretty. Don't get old, children... don't get old.

But that's not the point of this entry, so forget about it. Just remember that I have another birthday (sigh) in six weeks, and presents make old people happy.

The point of this entry is this:

When you're wide awake at 3:00 AM, what are you going to do, except drink coffee and play endless games of Spider Solitaire watch random headline news channels? Of course, at that hour, the news cycles over and over and over and over and over again, so within two hours, you've seen each story roughly 16 times... which is how I can be certain I heard what I heard.

A reporter from a local affiliate feeding stories to whichever cable channel I was watching stood in rain-drenched Florida and described the post-Wilma flooding situation. Then she directed the camera to floodwaters coursing through the streets and said:

"As you can see, it's like a river out here. If you've ever heard that expression 'flowing like a river,' this is what it means."

And for the next 15 times I heard that report, I kept thinking, 'Was that comment for the benefit of the two Moroccans who may have been watching who have never seen moving water?'

I mean, is it just me? Or do people sort of instinctively get the mental imagery behind the phrase 'flowing like a river'? I know the poor thing had to fill air time, but wouldn't the finite number of words she'll utter during her time on Earth be better utilized?

Then again, she didn't pull an Anderson Cooper 'rats-gnawing-on-corpses' moment to ruin my breakfast, so maybe I'm being too hard on her.