How Come?

Often, I ponder. . . . .

1. How come the ranch dressing in restaurants tastes so much better than anything I can get at the grocery store?

2. Why does red licorice give me heartburn?

3. Why can't my family see the stuff piled up on the stairs?

4. Why does everything at the Minnesota State Fair cost $20?


5. Why am I always at the 4-way stop with the teenager who doesn't understand 4-way stops?

6. Why do I always ruin every nice shirt with one little spot of olive oil?

7. Why doesn't the government provide grants for kids' sports equipment and fees?

8. How come missing just one freakin day of flossing, and my gums go to pot?

9. Why does everyone eat in the living room, when the rule is NO eating in the living room?

10. How come American actors are drop dead beautiful while British actors are just so-so? For the record, I prefer the British ones - they're funnier.

11. I'm 46, and still have acne and oily skin. At what age, exactly, will I "grow out of it"?

12. When will Spring get here?

My Life as a Sitcom

Ever take a step back and realize your life is like a comedy, but without the laugh track? So I just provide an internal laugh track and chuckle my way through.

1. The CD/Radio in my van is stuck ON. There is no way on God's Green Earth I can turn that sucker off short of ripping it out of the dashboard. And the volume control has gone down too, so it's just loud enough to be annoying but not loud enough to actually HEAR what's being said. And we don't have the money right now to fix or replace it. I've discovered that if I put in a blank CD, at least it's silent.

2. Half of the dashboard lights in the same van have gone down. Think there's a connection? But I can still see most of the speedometer. And we've decided a pen light duct taped to the steering column will do when the whole enchilada breaks. No way will we pay someone to tear out the dashboard for diagnostics on a van with 130,000 miles on it.

3. One of my twins has become like the Tide stain commercial. I'm trying to tell her something and she's interrupting because she's 14 and therefore knows it ALL. Then 3 minutes later she's asking "when are we leaving?", "how do I do this?", and the whirlpool starts again.

4. Today I put in my first contact lens at exactly the same moment an undried soap bubble entered my eye socket. Much cursing ensued.

5. We own three cats, and I'm a dog person. And lately a stray has been hanging around who looks like Mao Tse Tung, so we call him Chairman Mao and the kids hiss at him.