I have this obsessive compulsion to press buttons. I always have. Buttons are fun to push, because when you push buttons, things happen. A situation in which things are happening is unquestionably more interesting than a situation in which things are not happening.

And so it was that, on an idle Sunday afternoon four years ago, I found myself taking in the new-car smell of a shiny, shiny new car with The Adopted Grandma and Fun Marse, en route to some no-name buffet at which the food is of questionable quality, longing to press all the buttons in the new car 'just to see what they do.'

Next thing I know, it's 300 degrees of baked new-car smell goodness, the windshield wipers are putting up their best defense against the venom-like spray of the wiper fluid (which actually so closely resembles an eye of some sort that TAG screams in very real fear and Marse jerks the wheel so we don't end up in the ditch, the trunk has opened and is flapping in the wind, and the radio is playing a country-western song about love lost and money won.

I learned an important lesson that day about not pushing buttons in a moving vehicle when there are cars in the other lane. But now, four years later, I still haven't stopped pressing buttons. Granted, I haven't ever hit the 'Emergency Call' button (on purpose, at least), and I don't go around pulling the fire alarm or anything, but I still have this incredible tendency to play with things. It's how I learn. Riiiight.

But it turns out that I come by it honestly. I get this button-pushing drive from my real grandmother, Grandma.

Grandma is an admirable woman of good moral character and a strong will. She's also the one who set up my Mickey Mouse tent in her living room on Chrismas Eve when I was four and wouldn't shut up so everyone else could open their presents. But I think the point I was hoping to get to was that she, like me, enjoys pushing buttons.

Together, we are an unstoppable button-pushing force. Yeah. But anyway, take the keno machines this summer as an example. In the state where Grandma lives, pretty much every business is also a casino, and they tend to promote the casino end of it after dinner with free tokens for gambling. Mmm, gambling.

Anyway, Grandma and the keno machine weren't exactly seeing eye to eye, so Grandma did what any reasonable person would do and decided to just push every button she could find until the machine either did what she wanted or gave her her money back.

Naturally, the machine defaulted to 'BET ALL' and Grandma was getting upset. I was assigned the task of finding someone to care enough to get us a refund, a job I took on with gusto. In the end, we got the money back and Grandma got not one, but two free games of keno (both of which she lost, but Grandma's keno record really isn't the issue here). So we not only share the same mutant obsessive-compulsive gene, but we also make a good team.

Whether it's going into the store for bread and milk and coming out with ice cream and TV Guide, or making fun of the losers who can't get 'QUIET AS A MOUSE' from 'Q--ET AS A MO-SE' on Wheel of Fortune, Grandma and I have got you beat. It's like how L. and I will challenge all takers to a high-stakes game of Taboo. We can't lose. ("Rivets." Heh.)

And I'll let you in on a little secret. The invincibility of Grandma and me owes itself, in part, to the cookies. Grandma has this ceramic jar on the counter in her kitchen that is always chock-full of Oreos. Oreos are awesome, even when they try to get all weird with the Double Delight Peanut Butter and Chocolate Oreos (for the record, ew.), even when I'm stuffed full of spaghetti pie and salad and potatos and everything.

However, the Oreo, unlike the team of Grandma and me, can be beat. Grandma can trump the Oreo. It's the oatmeal raisin cookie in the plastic red and white container that Grandma herself made. There's something about homemade cookies that is just more wholesome and good than a prepackaged cookie from a soulless manufacturer, especially when the homemadeness can be attributed to your partner in crime.

All this by way of saying, Grandma turned 80 this week, and it's really kind of cool that she can still do all the fun stuff she did with me when she was 65. I guess the time between age 2 and age 17 doesn't really seem like a big deal, but for some reason, going from 65 to 80 seems like a really amazing accomplishment. So, if you're reading this, Grandma, save a piece of cake in the freezer for me and be sure to make a wish when you blow out the candles. After all, I and my button pushing cause small natural disasters on a fairly regular basis, but you only turn 80 once.