The FCW Punch Line contest is now closed. We have compiled the 100-plus entries and forwarded them on to our guest, a long-time fed who retired at the beginning of 2007. We'll publish his top picks online and in the magazine on Jan.7 Meanwhile, we will publish the complete list of entries in batches during the next week. Here is the first group:

You know you've been a fed too long when…

. . . You can't stop waking up at 5:30 even on weekends to start getting ready for work. 

. . . You spend the morning discussing whether the President will give everyone the afternoon off.

. . . You keep telling everyone how parking used to be $1 when you first came to Washington.

. . . You find yourself walking down the hall repeating over and over the years, months, days left to KMA.

. . . You can remember the last 3 times someone tried the newest great idea.

. . . You walk around laughing at the FERS people because you are still CRS.

. . . You begin your speech to the kindergarten class with "madam chairman, esteemed colleagues and members of the press..."

. . . Your living room coffee table is overloaded with FCW, GCN, IW, and AFCEA brochures.

. . . It's 2007 and your computer is getting upgraded to Windows 2000 and you're actually excited about it.

. . . You check the per diem table for your personal travel.

. . . You send your family a PowerPoint explaining why you are late.

. . . You can carry on a conversation at the dinner table using only acronyms and initialisms.

. . . You told your daughter/son you wouldn't give them their allowance until you had "inspected and accepted"  their work around the house.

. . . You have over 4000 hours of sick leave.

. . . You can't remember who the President was when you first entered federal employment.

. . . You can show someone your entire collection of Geico leave records for the last 30+ years.

. . . You asked when you plan to retire you reply "I was eligible 5 years ago".

. . . You wear your ID badge to a black tie event.

. . . You can recall your Service Computation Date faster than you can recall the date of your wedding anniversary.

. . . You hesitate to buy that shiny birthday card to drop in the mail until you remember that not all mail gets irradiated.