The best ad copy I ever wrote in my life...

... got me no raises, no Addys and wasn't even printed.

It only appeared on match dot com. I was searching for an intelligent, silly person. My perfect match saw it, paid $19.95 to respond, and the rest is history.

Mr. Sweetypants travels constantly for his job. This was never an issue for us the first few years; my most successful relationships in my youth were long distance and, at the tender age of 35 when we got together, I was accustomed to living alone.

But lately, I've had nothing to dread -- er, do -- during my unemployment and I rely on Mr. Sweetypants to keep me entertained, so I miss him when he's gone for days on end. Dave and Eudora are here, but they don't break into improvisational song or hurl lightning-fast insult comedy quips.

Truth be told, I've gone a bit feral here on my own with no mandated routine. I wear comfortable clothes and don't put product in my hair, let alone putting on makeup. I eat when I'm starving and sleep when I need to, which happens to be for four hours twice a day.

I woke up from my most recent nap, glanced at the clock on the cable box, and saw that it was 7. Sleepy and groggy as I was, I couldn't remember what time I'd gone to sleep and panicked because I honestly didn't know if it was morning or evening. So I turned on the TV to see if Jeopardy or Good Morning America was on. GMA. Problem solved.

Needing to share this hysterical bit of stupidity on my part with the person who would most appreciate it, I e-mailed Mr. Sweetypants. He called two minutes later from his hotel room.

"What are you doing up this early?," I asked, "Aren't you in a different time zone?"

Unsure of what time it was because the room didn't have a clock, Mr. Sweetypants decided to rely on his trusty companion, Mr. iPhone. I heard him shuffling around before he said, "I can't find my phone."

"You mean the one you're speaking to me on?" I replied, ending a sentence with a preposition and dissolving into laughter.

We agreed that we were even and started talking about time zones, trying to figure out what time it was there. Mr. Sweetypants, the scientist and geography buff, started quoting latitudes and longitudes while I thought about TV listing times for the Central, Mountain and Pacific zones.

"Yes, but Iowa is west of here," I said, proudly figuring out that west is behind.

"I'm in Maine!," he reminded me.

Oh yeah. Oops. I really need a job, but that's the only thing I need. I've got my Mr. Sweetypants and two surly, nonplussed cats to round everything else out.