Why is cooking not a generally accepted life skill? Here’s the thing- we all must eat to live, and eating requires, at the most basic level, some form of cooking. We don’t make it a point of conversation to ask people if they know how to brush their teeth or bathe, and then act excited when we find out they are actually very good at such activities. “Oh my goodness, you know how to floss!? Can you please teach me? I’ve tried but really, I just can’t even floss one tooth- can’t figure out how. It’s fine though, my spouse flosses for me.” However, cooking is seen as this Accomplishment and Skill which some possess and others would not deign to master. It baffles me.

Who are these people who don’t believe in bathroom trashcans? Every now and then you go to someone’s house and when you go to toss out your tissue or bathroom miscellany, you are left in the lurch, hunting high and low for the non-existent trash can. How do these people not find bathroom trashcans necessary? Do they not floss? Have they never met a woman? Do they not know we need trashcans in this world?

At what point does a small business which one should support, turn into a large business one is supposed to eschew? You’ve all felt the push to shop small and avoid chain stores, all that jazz. But all the big stores and chains once started out as somebody’s little project too, right? You know, like how IKEA started out with a boy selling pens and wallets, and has now taken over our furniture world. So what’s the tipping point where businesses go from “small and good” to “big and bad”? And what about medium-sized businesses- are we supposed to support or avoid those?

Why does the owner of the Very Loud Car think it’s fun to sit outside my window at the stop sign and rev his awful engine at night? Really, day or night, there is almost nothing that makes me more irrationally vexed than his awful exhaust. Does he know how I fight the desire to open my window and yell at him? Sometimes in Mocksville, the land of the big trucks, I would be out for a walk with Lyn and a truck would sally by, revving loudly to get our admiring attention. We always shook our heads and wondered how anybody thought that was actually going to work. Are there actually people out there who swoon over excessively loud car exhausts in any and every location?

Why are movies so very seldom up to the standard of their predecessor books? Are filmmakers less creative than authors? Is it because I like old books and the movie remakes are modern and I just don’t like the style of modern creatives? Is it because they take liberties with precious little details such as the color of a character’s hair or the elimination of favorite characters like Tom Bombadil, and I cannot bear to see my favorite works manipulated so? Is it because my imagination has already created what the world should look like and the filmmakers don’t bother to consult me directly before planning sets? Whatever the case, I can probably count on one hand the films that outdo their books, such as “Sarah, Plain and Tall.” What do you think causes this?

What does this sign mean?