Random Thoughts

1. Why do some jeans have a button fly? I've got a pair of jeans (actually just one...we shouldn't call them a "pair") which are comfortable to the max. I love 'em. Except when nature calls. It is a situation that fairly yells for a zipper. I'm wondering if the button fly was invented by a guy who, uh, got caught in his zipper. Hey, it just hit me that the word "zipper" is onomatopoetic. Cool.

2. How in the name of Gerber can anyone hold a newborn and not believe in God is beyond me. I'm the proud grandpa of two-week-old Macie. I love holding her and studying her as she sleeps. There is such perfection in the tiny fingers, the immaculate eyebrows, and her fuzz-topped scalp. Does an atheist hold such a miracle in his arms and think, "Wow, we've come a long way since those amoeba got together!"?

3. What do northerners do for dry skin? If my hands are cracking and bleeding with the mild winters we have here, what happens near the 45th parallel? Every kind of gloves I've tried that really keep my hands warm on icy mornings also serves to dry up the skin.

4. When did Texas quit giving prospective drivers a behind-the-wheel test in addition to the written test? Can this explain the incredible lowering of driver IQ that is so obvious? It's getting to where I now expect a left turn from a driver signalling right. One of the weirder things I'm confronting on my thrilling school bus forays is this: I'll be tooling down, say, Buckner Blvd. at 35 mph and the driver in front of me will suddenly come to a stop. There is no stop sign or red light involved in this equation, no intersection, no left turn lane. She (or occasionally "he") just stops for no apparent reason, causing me to try and stop my 16-ton vehicle in short space. Then, by the time the smoke from my rear duals has cleared, the aforementioned car will resume its journey to wherever stupid folks go.

If you'd like to solve any of the above mysteries, feel free to chime in.