I write a lot about maturing. My definition of maturing is the transition from kid to adult that takes place from the time you're 17 until you die, because most of us never become fully mature. I know that I won't.

"Uh, nurse? I have a bit of pain in my finger. Perhaps if you pulled it..."

This column's previously discussed signs of my life changing are apartment hunting, paying my own electric bill, and people I know having babies. But nothing prepared me for the biggest rite of passage I've now gone through.

I was at a writers networking event last week, which also doubled as a singles night because of the proximity to Valentine's Day. I thought this was a fine idea; if tradition held true and things went wrong when I hit on someone, I could end up with some freelance work. Of course, neither happened.

The event was red lit, which made reading people's nametags extremely difficult. Some people refusing to wear nametags made reading them even more difficult. But the combination of people having tags and people refusing to wear them set up the easiest opening lines of all time. If a girl were wearing a nametag, I'd say, "I can't read your nametag. What does it say?" If she were sans nametag, I'd say, "How come you're not wearing a nametag?"

And that is how I met the nametagless Jessica. The logical follow-up to "how come you're not wearing a nametag?" is "so what is your name?" Thus, I found out her name was Jessica about ten seconds into the conversation. Because the logical follow up to that is not "do you have a husband?," I didn't find out that she did until we were talking for about an hour.

I have been trained over the past several years to determine whether or not my conversation partner has a boyfriend. If you've read my column before, you know that I don't trust body language, so I rely on other means of discovery. My most common investigative procedure involves asking how the two met, and if that doesn't work, I make a comment to the guy about what it's like being single. If I still can't tell, I'll ask the guy if he thinks the waitress is hot or the bartender is hot or the anyone-but-the-girl-with-whom-I'm-flirting is hot. Even if he and my flirtee are dating, if he says yes to any of those questions, they won't be for much longer.

Once I determine that there is no boyfriend present, there still might be one at home. To determine if this is true, I try steering the conversation towards a recent relationship or breakup I've had, which may or may not be fictional. If the girl doesn't mention her current boyfriend, either she doesn't have one or she won't have one for much longer.

But these techniques do not work for husbands. Husbands have been around long enough that wives don't even think of mentioning them, since they're just a part of the day. When you get a new car or a new apartment or a new prosthetic limb, it's all you talk about for the first few weeks you have it. But after a while, you have grown tired of the details, and you go to singles events on the day your wedding ring happens to be getting reset.

I don't fault Jessica for not mentioning her husband, since it must be difficult for a married woman to make new male friends. The only way a woman makes male friends is by convincing them that the two of them are not going to sleep together, so he may as well stop wasting his energy. If he agrees that they're not going to sleep together for the time being, but thinks there is a shot of them doing it in the future, he'll stay friends with her, too.

If a married woman tells a guy she's married early on in the conversation, he'll usually excuse himself to hit on someone single. And by "usually," I mean "quickly and always." If a married guy tells a woman that he's married early on in the conversation, he's lying since guys never admit that without prodding.

I am glad I spent my night talking to Jessica, since I gained two things from it. One, I have a new friend I know I won't hit on. Two, I am empowered with the knowledge that I have to start asking about more than just boyfriends.

It'd be so much easier if everyone just wore nametags.

I went to Kinko's this week. That was my first mistake.

The Dave Chappelle Show debuted with a sketch about PopCopy, an obvious satire of Kinko's. The sketch was an employee training video that instructed their workforce to ignore patrons, tell customers that all the machines are down, and soil bathrooms with chocolate sauce to give the appearance of fecal matter. "Mmmm," Chappelle said, "poopy!"

The only Kinko's I'd previously been to had been the store near my college campus. It wasn't like the ones Chappelle was mocking because it didn't have much business; no one on campus went anywhere they didn't accept dining dollars.

I recently moved to midtown Manhattan, where there are more Kinko's than Starbucks, and there are more Starbucks than people, and there are more people in Starbucks than chairs. Tuesday, I needed to make a large laminated color poster, and so I called a nearby Kinko's and asked if they could do it that night.

"Sure," they said. "Bring it down."

I had called the Kinko's on Lexington and 54th street, but accidentally walked over to the Kinko's on Lexington between 53rd and 54th. Jimmy, who'd been a proud member of the Kinko's team since January, 2003, forwarded me to the other store. I soon found out that "sure" meant "we may get it done by closing" and "bring it down" meant "tomorrow."

The next day, I got a call saying my poster was ready. What they meant was that if I came down, they'd prepare the poster for me right then since it only takes three minutes anyway.

While a bit annoyed at having to wait a day and make two trips, this was still not enough to convince me that Kinko's was part of the evil empire. And so I went back the next day for a new project. This was my second mistake.

When Kinko's was founded, the employees were instructed that the customer is always right. Now that they have close to a monopoly on copying services, the employees are instructed that the customer is always there.

I needed to print two color pages on card stock and fax one sheet of paper I'd previously printed. This time Sam, whose seniority extended back to December of 2002, told me that he was too busy to print the job himself, but he happily placed the cardstock in the printer tray for me. And by "happily," I mean "hatefully because his poor life choices led him to work at Kinko's."

I needed to wait for a computer to free up. There were three available, but one didn't print, one had no disk drive, and the last one looked fine, but an out of order sign was blocking the keyboard.

Finally my turn, I asked my documents to please print and they, in turn, asked me if I was sure. I told them I was, and they asked me if I was sure sure. Once I assured them that I was sure sure, they still wanted to know if I'd accept the charges that I'd twice told them I'd accept. This was very kind of my documents, since the computer was charging me three hundred dollars per minute for this conversation.

After all of this, the paper jammed. While most of the Kinko's employees ignored me, I flagged Sam down to fix the printer. He told me that the color printer didn't take cardstock, and I shouldn't have put it there.

"But you put it there!" I said.

"No I didn't," Sam said. "You must have."

"Sir," I replied. "Of the two of us, who do you think is more likely to have access to cardstock?"

Instead of realizing that the answer was "the person in the denim shirt," he suggested that I print to a regular sheet of paper and use the photocopier to get my project to cardstock.

"Great," I said. "Where's the color copier?"

"We have two of them over there," Sam replied. "But they're down."

I had nothing to show for an hour of my time other than $10 of charges on my credit card. After waiting several minutes for an attendant, they credited my $10 back, and told me to send my fax at the self-service machine. Which necessitated my getting back in line to pay for it. After fifteen minutes of waiting in line to unsuccessfully give them a dollar fifty, I grabbed the arm of an employee walking by.

"I just wanted to let you know that I've given you an hour and a half of my life," I said, "and all you've given me is a one page fax. Now I'm going to leave, and I'm not going to pay you for that fax."

"I understand," he said. "I apologize for the delays, and hope that you leave here today with a positive opinion of Kinko's."

"Mmmm," I said, as I balled up the receipt for the fax. "Poopy."

I have spent much of the morning staring at my hotel's complimentary bottle of water and wondering why it is not complimentary at all. Drinking it would have resulted in an automatic charge of $5 to my credit card, which is still mad at me from the last time it was charged.

The hotel refers to this water as a convenience, while I refer to it as a paperweight; that's all a warm undrinkable bottle of water on my desk is good for. The do-not-disturb-esque sign that still hangs around the water's neck informed me that the water will be refreshed daily. Since water doesn't spoil, I'm a bit confused. And since Aquafina isn't fresh to begin with, how can it be refreshed? Most importantly, do they sell the day-old water on the street, marked down to an inexpensive $3.50?

Ironically, the second half of the Aquafina slogan is "we promise nothing," which is exactly what water costs you when you are provided simultaneously with a faucet, a glass, and opposable thumbs.

I pondered all of this to occupy myself while trying to pass the time in my room. I finally went out to a local grocery store and purchased my own, slightly smaller bottle of Aquafina and placed it next to the other two to confuse the housekeeper. I even left a note around its neck.

"For your convenience, the other two bottles of Aquafina have mated. Should you choose to consume their offspring, your credit card will be charged 89 cents, which is the actual price for a bottle of Aquafina."

The humor was lost on my housekeeper, whose only English word is "houskeepee!" which is as much of an English word as the bottles of water are complimentary. I thought of calling the manager and telling him I had a problem in my room just so that someone who spoke English would come upstairs and have a chance to see just how clever I can be when I'm bored.

The water in my shower this morning was free, which is probably because the pressure was so low that not much came out by the time I was done. The extra small towel I was provided was perfect, since I wasn't all that wet.

The "big" towels are too small for the standard "wrap and tuck" maneuver, the hand towels are literally the size of your hand, and the bath mat is the only regular sized piece of terrycloth in the room. Except the "big" towels are so small that you never know which towel is for the floor and which is to wrap around half of your waist. I think I may have accidentally chosen to wrap myself in the bath mat, since my towel only reached from my hip to my bellybutton, whereas the big hotel towel usually reaches from my hip to two inches past my bellybutton.

Hotels make things smaller so that they save money when people steal them - an idea that also explains the soaps and shampoos. Though I wonder how many people staying at a classy hotel would steal a full bottle of Head and Shoulders. And if I did swipe it, couldn't the hotel just charge my credit card? If a $1 bottle of water costs me $5, I can only imagine how much extra money this place could make off of a stolen $6 bottle of shampoo. I'd get home and my credit card would be maxxed out, which is very convenient for my creditors that want an excuse to repossess all of my belongings. Hopefully, they'd leave a do-not-disturb-esque note around my neck.

"For your convenience, we have taken your credit card. Should you want it back, your credit card will be charged five dollars."

The shampoo has no note about it being refreshed, which makes me think that there's a big vat and a funnel somewhere in the bowls of the hotel. Actually, I don't think that at all. They probably throw it out, but I wanted an excuse to print the phrase, "bowels of the hotel."

The one thing I really don't understand in all of this is why the bathroom is the only thing that is theft proof. In the main room, there are hangers, two phones, an alarm clock, framed pictures, magazines, a coffee maker, an ice bucket, and 14 layers of bed sheets. Though the TV is nailed down. The apparent problem in hotels is people pilfering the bathroom supplies and 32-inch electronics, and hiding them in their luggage and/or piano cases. Or perhaps foldout pockets on suitcases have gotten impressively large.

Beyond five-dollar water, the other complimentary features of the hotel include a locked minibar, a room service menu with overly inflated prices, and the wonderfully ironic free option to watch pay-per-view.

Not everything in the hotel room, however, will cost you. The coffee and tea is free to any guest, and located next to the very expensive warm water. For your convenience, of course.

Apartment hunting in a seller's market is like Christmas shopping the third week of December. While your wallet will benefit from patience and persistence, you will occasionally have to kick another shopper in the shin and grab the last furbee.

I do not mean to seem out of touch by using the furbee as an example of a desired commodity; rather, I wanted to show that no one my age is in the market for the latest and greatest apartment. However, there are still enough of us shopping for furbees that even the smallest furbee store can hold an open house and expect us to trip over each other for the privilege of paying hundreds of dollars a month for a talking Gremlin. Okay, even I've lost the analogy.

Let me start over and simplify things - I've spent the last few weeks looking for an apartment and the process has been less enjoyable than playing with a furbee.

When I moved to Boston, I wrote a goodbye column to New York. I should have just said, "see you soon," because it took me just three months before I moved back to the city that can't seem to get a good night's rest. In subsequent columns, I only made veiled references to my return trip because I was unsure of its permanence. Mainly because furbees are expensive.

If you want to know what it costs to get an apartment in New York, think about whatever you're paying now and double it. If you live in a state that starts with an I or a K, triple it. Unless everyone who reads this column also buys my book - twice - I'm not going to have the kind of money it takes to get my own place here. But if I add up my stand-up comedy, book sales, and columns, I have just enough money to pay off my student loans and live with my parents. I'm kidding, of course. That's what I do - you should be used to it by now.

All of this kidding has finally earned me enough to get a decent place with a roommate, which in New York is still more expensive than a two-bedroom house in a K state.

The first place I contacted was also the first place I visited, which is atypical since most of these people ignore you. So many of us want a good apartment that apartment-listers can act like bouncers at a hot club, not even bothering with you if they don't like your shoes.

When I got there, I was luckily wearing nice shoes. The apartment was small, but it was very clean and had lots of nooks and crannies for storing suitcases, boxes, and the occasional English muffin. The girl that was living in the other bedroom was amiable, so much so that her name was actually Amy. I took this as a good sign, but the apartment got smaller when two other people showed up to look at it, and smaller still upon the arrival of three more. In a sudden effort to mark my territory, I pulled out my"¦checkbook and offered to pay February's rent immediately. My offer was politely declined, and I was told the next day that Amy decided against having a male roommate. Guys, it seemed, were not Amy-able. And though I contemplated a sex change, I decided that the rent would have to have been much lower.

The second place was a three-bedroom already equipped with two guys, so my shoes were incidental. It was an amazing location, a great price, and the guys seemed pretty cool - except it was a railroad setup. "Railroad," which comes from the ancient Greek for "no privacy," means I'd have to walk through their rooms to get to mine. I wanted it anyway, but lost out when a female friend of theirs decided to take it. I seriously considered that sex change.

The third apartment was just awful. It had a couple living in one bedroom of a two, and though they had been looking for a female roommate, they said they'd give me a chance. They also said they had a small dog, which turned out to be in the shape of a large horse. Allegedly, the dog just wanted to play with me, which didn't quite explain why its mouth needed to be tied shut. My theory is that the dog just wanted to play with my gnawed-off arm. The whole place was filled with dog food, dog toys, dog hair, and dog smell. I think the dog had been living in one bedroom and renting the other to the couple. And he didn't care what gender I was - he just wanted lunch.

A 6th floor walkup, a shared studio, and a large common area with "bedrooms" that had three-foot-high ceilings later, I finally found a place. It's a two-bedroom in a great location for a decent price, and my roommates are awesome - two chill girls sharing the other room. When I told this to a friend of mine, she said, "don't let them paint your toe nails or put makeup on you or anything."

"Of course not," I replied. "Not unless they lower the rent."