Sometimes people complain that our lawmakers pay too much attention to frivolous laws. I tend to agree. I saw something last weekend that requires immediate legislative action. Enough of worrying about healthcare and education and public safety.
We need to take care of dining etiquette.
As a writer and a parent, I think people should do everything in their power to encourage children to read. But I have had it up to here with this Harry Potter stuff. I have to say right off the bat that I have never read any of the Potter books. I have no doubt that adults can enjoy the books as much as youngsters, but I just don’t have that much interest in fantasy.
Besides, the insanity surrounding these things is just getting to be too much.
Over the past few months, I have come to an important realization. I decided that I don’t like being sick. Unfortunately, I have put a lot of research into making this decision. I kind of felt this way when I had bronchitis a couple of times in December, but I thought I’d hold off before making a final answer.
A nice little stomach virus helped me reach that answer this week.
Normally, I wouldn’t think of criticizing television. After all, the warm, blue glow has helped sustain me for my entire life.
But over the past few months, something has started to really annoy me.
The thing itself hasn’t bothered me because I never watch it. The people who can’t stop yammering about it, sending it into the public conscious have bothered me.
It’s official: I’m sick and tired of The Food Network.
As a nation, we agree on so few things. We all understand that Tom Cruise is pretty freaky, and that Paris Hilton is pretty yukky and that Scarlett Johansson is pretty dreamy.
But we have something now to rally around that goes way beyond the lives of the rich and famous.
We must band together to stop Smittens.
We all have suffered through the heat in recent weeks. At times, it has been almost unbearable. The heat has been so bad, I think some people have lost control of their faculties. I point to the proliferation of iced coffee drinks as evidence.
I remember the first time I heard of iced coffee. Someone asked me to make it for them when I worked food service at Harborplace in Baltimore.
I knew something was wrong, and I didn’t even drink regular coffee at the time. Now that I have fully committed myself to caffeine addiction, I understand even more why iced coffee is so, so wrong.
I had to go to a lunch presentation for work the other day. Everyone loves a free lunch, right? Wrong.
I could barely recognize the stuff that filled my plate as a proper lunch. I should have expected as much when I saw the “salad” that started the meal – a bunch of spinach leaves and a few stray onions. I don’t eat many salads, but I don’t know how that can qualify as food. First off, it’s not a salad unless it has croutons. And spinach can’t ever serve as the primary attraction in any food.
If I have dedicated myself to anything over the past 37 years, it has been laziness. From my days as a child when one of my brothers had to carry me upstairs to breakfast to now when I will skip dinner because I don’t feel like microwaving popcorn, I have done all I can to avoid the extra step.
But I have seen some things lately that truly disturb me. I think our smartest people should spend their time making our lives easier, but they seem to have taken a wrong turn.
While walking around a store recently, I saw a contraption that sent me into a tizzy. I stood in the aisle and just shook my head.
My wife asked me a silly question a few weeks ago. A question that bothered me. A question that made me wonder if she had spent the day nipping at the cooking sherry. She asked me what I wanted for Christmas.
I had to look at the calendar to see if I had pulled a Rip van Winkle and slept through all of November. We hadn’t even started to think about Thanksgiving and she wanted me to decide what I wanted for Christmas.
What I really want for Christmas is for people to wait until after Thanksgiving to talk about Christmas presents.
My wife and I went away for the weekend recently to celebrate our 10th anniversary. We came back relaxed after a splendid weekend. But I have a bone to pick with some of the people who also spent that weekend in Cape May, N.J. You people need to learn how to travel.
I’m no world-traveler, but I have taken my share of trips, particularly to historically relevant places. Maria loves visiting historic houses, so I know the drill pretty well.
That’s why I couldn’t get over the number of indecisive people we encountered. I don’t expect people to plan a detailed itinerary each day, but they could at least have a clue about what they plan to do when they set out for the day.