Some Things I Don't Understand

[Feel free to answer a question, or add your own!]

Things I Don’t Understand: These Are Things I Think About

1. Why can’t summer Fridays exist year-round? Better yet, why not add Fridays to the weekend, as part of a stimulus plan to help boost the economy? If I weren’t babysitting my office on Fridays, surely I would be purchasing something, or getting a haircut, or seeing a movie.

2. Why do we pay for Internet service? Cable and telephone companies had nothing to do with inventing the Internet; why are we paying them? It’s invisible, it’s in the air, it equalizes Americans—it should be free! [Note: I read somewhere recently, though I can’t cite the source, that George W. Bush had the opportunity to offer free WiFi in America and he chose not to. Another smooth move, ExLax.]

3. Why is health food (and healthy food) so damn expensive? Why should I pay so much more for groceries just because I don’t want artificial coloring, tons of sugar or dead animals in my body? Shouldn’t the piglets, I mean people, who buy unhealthy, fattening foods on a regular basis (because everyone needs some Mallomars once in a while), and then become a burden on the national health budget via diabetes and obesity-related diseases, pay more? I’m just saying.

4. Why aren’t apples free? Apples should be free.

5. How/why does someone acquire a pet (cat, dog, alligator, crazy-scary snake) and then decide, “Hey, I no longer want/need/can afford this pet. I’m going to drive on over to the dumpster/highway/Everglades and dump it!” I cannot understand it. If there were a punishment for abandoning animals, maybe fewer people would do it. Maybe.

6. Can Obama please regulate the price of movie tickets? Prices are a bit out of control, and it’s not fair to loyal moviegoers.

7. Does Ted Haggard now have a reality TV show of some sort? WTF is up with that? He’s being rewarded for being a bigoted, homophobic, hypocritical liar?

8. Why can’t moving be a tax write-off?

9. Why isn’t commuting a tax write-off?

10. How come men can pay for Viagra via health insurance (flex benefits or co-pays or both!) but these plans don’t offer women a way to buy tampons?

11. Whatever happened to ring-around-the-collar? When I was a child, it seemed like a national crisis, based on the number of commercials on television. Now I never hear about it. Did it just go away?

12. When are the Indigo Girls going to release another live album? They’re so due for one.

13. Why don’t the cable TV networks start selling single TV shows, a la ITunes? I would definitely pay 99 cents to watch “Flight of the Conchords” or “Weeds.” I don’t need (or want) to subscribe to the channel on a monthly basis, but I, and millions of other people, would buy one show at a time if it were possible.

14. Why are there so many Sleepy’s stores? How often do people purchase new beds?

15. When did it become OK to charge over a dollar for a pack of gum?