We want to announce some exciting changes here at DDDT. We get a lot of reader mail, and one theme we’ve heard repeated over and over again has been: Why do you guys post on a fixed schedule? Why not just write when you’d like to? Just in the past week we’ve heard this from frequent commenters and readers Ryan, Davis, and Christian, to name just a few.

So, no more Monday/Wednesday/Friday posting. We still plan on posting, just not on a schedule. And although you will now only read posts when we decide to write them, we’ve decided to allow you to keep writing comments whenever you want – for free! So we don’t think this change really affects you that much. Your reactions to this change can be sent to gostartyourownblog@gmail.com.

Warm Regards,

DDDT

I didn’t know what that meant. I just knew it got them out of school and they all talked excitedly to each other about whatever it was Sunshine Generation did. Well I later discovered what they did and my jealousy evaporated.

Sunshine Generation is a performance troupe for young children. How did it come to be? The story goes that 30 years ago Liberace had a pallet of small glittery red bow ties and yellow and orange frilly dresses mistakenly delivered to his house. Not one to waste such treasures he figured he might as well put them to use by creating a performance troupe for young children in Fruit Heights, Utah.

I do my best to forget about Sunshine Generation, but one can never escape it completely. Last July at Kaysville’s Independence Day Parade I endured 20 floats with their own little performance troupes.

Then I forgot about it again and life returned to normal. Then I saw the Double Dream Hands video recently, which most of you have doubtless seen by now as well.

Why do parents do that to their children?

When I was a sophomore in high school, I had a class with a girl who I will call Jen Carter. Jen was one grade above me in school, and six million grades above me in every other meaningful sense. In light of our differences in age, social standing, and progress up the ladder of puberty, I wasn’t ever going to have so much as a passing conversation with Jen, with two notable exceptions:

1. Situations that took place inside of my head. I am not ashamed to admit there were a few of these. Don’t worry: because at the age of 16 I was still 5 or 6 years away from hitting puberty, these daydreams were of a highly innocent nature. I don’t remember any one specific fantasy date between Jen and I, but if I had to guess, I’d say there was probably a lot of us walking down the beach and holding hands while she lamented the fact that she’d had to wade through so many handsome, popular, post-pubescent guys before finding me. And in these daydreams I was probably dressed like Magnum P.I. and she was probably dressed like Magnum’s beautiful but ill-fated wife Michelle.

2. Situations where Jen sat by me in class. Because of the mandatory alphabetical seating chart.

And so it was that Jen and I became . . .two people who sat next to each other in class. Jen was always nice to me to when I attempted to engage her. I’d occasionally turn around and say something to her along the lines of, “Man. This teacher is so lame.” To which she would reply, “Yeah. So lame.” And that would be that. One time I gave some sort of class presentation and as part of it I played “Bridge Over Troubled Water” by Simon and Garfunkel. When I sat down Jen said to me, “That song was really pretty,” to which I replied, “As are you, fairest maiden.” Kidding. I said, “Yeah. So pretty.”

Flying high on the fact that Jen liked “Bridge Over Troubled Water,” I decided to make her a Simon and Garfunkel mix tape. Folk rock from the 60′s was what all the cool kids listened to in 1993. I’m not sure what my game plan was, exactly. She’d hear “Homeward Bound” and want to go to Homecoming with me? She’d listen to “At The Zoo” and want to go to Hogle Zoo with me? I really don’t know. But my heart breaks a little bit at my sincerity and naivete as I picture me handing the tape to her and saying, “Hey, here’s a mix tape.” Jen was actually pretty gracious as she accepted the tape, although it didn’t induce her to ask me to go to Homecoming or Hogle Zoo. Our class ended along with the school year and we went our seperate ways, I to a summer full of water ballooning, prank calls, and hand fishing, she to three months of parties and dates and boys.

One day during the summer my Mom sent me to Mervyn’s to buy myself some new underwear. I went with some trepidation, as this was the first time I’d ever bought my own underwear. Still, I figured it was probably time for me to take this momentous step. I was further motivated by the realization that this was my chance to switch from tighty whities, which was what little kids wore, to boxers, which was what the cool kids wore. Once there, though, I found myself daunted as I faced the entire Mervyn’s underwear department by myself, and I decided that now wasn’t the time to be getting fancy. I headed towards the tighty whities, and as I did I heard someone call out my name. Jen. Turns out she had a summer job working at Mervyn’s. In the men’s underwear department.

“Oh, hey, Jen. How are you?” (I reached in my pocket to see if I’d grabbed the keys that had a little Swiss Army knife on them so I could commit seppuku on the floor at Mervyn’s.)

“Good. What are you up to?”

“Oh, just grabbing some stuff.” (Some underwear. Some little boy underwear.)

“Ah. Well, do you need help finding anything?” (Yes. I need some help buying underwear for the first time. Would you, Jen, one of the prettiest and most popular girls I know, mind helping me? Maybe I could even try on a few pairs for you while we listen to my Simon and Garfunkel mix tape? Tell me about the elastic band on these Hanes. Do they tend to be durable?)

“Oh, no, I found what I needed.” (It’s over there at Gart Brothers Sporting Goods. It’s a shotgun. For my face.)

I was desperate to get rid of her, so I glanced at the underwear on the rack, and figuring that underwear with an elastic band was essentially one size fits all, I grabbed a few packages of the nearest tighty whities and began to bolt to the other end of the store. Jen stopped me in my tracks, saying, “Hey, I can ring you up for those.” As I review these events from the remove of time, I am forced to conclude that Jen was either 1. Incredibly sweet, helpful and a little oblivious or 2. A sadistic monster. Either way, I was forced to walk with her to the register, my arms full of tighty whities and my heart brimming with shame.

We made casual conversation while she rang me up for my wares, and then I headed to the roof of Mervyn’s and jumped off. It’s only two stories, though, so I lived. I proceeded home and unwrapped my new underwear; as I unfolded it I noticed that it simply kept unfolding and unfolding. And unfolding. I don’t remember the exact size, but I think it was in the mid-40s. I believe I was at that time around a size 32. Because they were already open, I put a pair on just to see how they felt. To my surprise, I rather liked them. Not as much as I would have liked Jen not seeing me buy size 46 tighty whities, but still, I liked them.

A very isolating food

I have a friend with a similar problem. She’s one of these types that doesn’t want to lie to her kids, so teachings of Santa Claus are limited to hints and implications, without any explicit doctrine being imparted.  She takes guff from the pro-Santa crowd for this, resulting in that same old feeling of being a lone holdout in a world of sellouts.  Anyway, the story goes that she was home one night with her family during the holidays, enjoying a cozy re-watching of Miracle on 34th Street.  Turns out that movie is pretty tough on people who don’t believe in Santa.  In fact, only ruthless lawyers and cruel corporate overlords don’t believe in Santa.  The ones that do believe in Santa are beautiful and loving and keep our society together and generally promote faith, trust and pixie dust.  Well, halfway into the movie, my friend’s small daughter looked up at her and noticed she was crying.  With sadness.  During Miracle on 34th Street.  She eventually realized she was ruining the movie for everyone else and quietly excused herself from the room.

When I think about being in that position, I think of Imagine. You know, that inspiring, wonderfully idealistic John Lennon song that everyone loves?  I can’t stand that song.  Suffice it to say, I have deep philosophical disagreements with its message, which, even to mention them, make me an intolerable prig who takes himself way too seriously. So let’s not get into it.  Regardless, I’m irritated whenever that song is on, and the trite humanistic lyrics only send me into a tailspin thinking about my wider disagreements with John, which hurts, because I also love him deeply (obviously).  After a minute or two of listening, I’m pretty much buried in a full-fledged argument with him over everything, and then I’m mad at all my friends and family too.

Hating one song in the world isn’t such an unbearable curse.  Until February 2008:

Yeah, that was the month David Archuleta sang Imagine on American Idol.  Big deal, right?  Well, do you remember how crazy Utah was when David freaking Archuleta was on American Idol?  You couldn’t escape.  He was on every local news program, on every blog, on everyone’s lips.  And when he performed that song in particular, people went freaking nuts.  And such a beautiful song!  One of the most beautiful songs ever written!  Who wouldn’t be blown away by that extraordinary song!

Stupid David Archuleta.  I spent a couple weeks feeling exactly like Lucy feels on pizza night.  You’re alone, but you don’t think you should be, because if people were half intelligent, they’d hate the thing as much as you do, but even bringing it up, let alone trying to explain why they should hate it, would make you look like such a self-absorbed buzzkill, that’s it’s best to just shut your yap and say nothing at all, which results in you sitting silently while everyone exults in the moment of mass idiocy.  Sometimes having more refined tastes means sitting it out while the world has a rockin’ time with Randy Jackson.

Seriously, why didn’t you sing the first verse, David?  Pansy.

1. Monday’s on D3T: they just got a whole lot cooler.
2. Monday is the new Friday!
3. Mondays and Wednesdays used to be lame. Now Wednesdays and Fridays are lame.
4. We refuse to be your bookends any longer, Davis.

…

I hope everyone had a great holiday break.

{cue the movie sound effect of a record suddenly comes to a screeching stop, which happens when someone commits a faux pas, like in Tyler Perry Presents Madea movies. As in “Well, Reverend Antoine, I’m sorry to tell you I didn’t hear a word of your sermon about taking the beam out of our eyes, cause my eyes was too busy beamin’ at that fine rear end of yours!”}

{Screeching sound}

Hold on, did I just say “Holiday” break as if I’m some sort of beret-sporting liberal Jewish movie agent writing a card to my client and close friend, Brad Pitt (sigh)?!? I meant to say I hope everyone had a freaking awesome CHRISTMAS BREAK! Eat that, Al Franken. Actually, our non-Mormon readers need to know I’m being sarcastic, of course. Mormon’s don’t celebrate Christmas. Nor birthdays. We only celebrate a day of second wife cart-pulling called “Festivus,” which falls on the true “seventh day” and involves the airing of grievances, Dianetics, and listening to a prison broadcast from Dear Leader, Warren Jeffs. And if we’re lucky, Leader Warren will conference in uncle Jim (Jones) via Ouiji Board to lead the closing Gnostic chant of Lothlorien. Since we don’t believe in electricity or batteries, we use a gerbil-powered radio and keep warm by the fireplaces we are famous for crafting.

Yes, I had a good Holiday (I’m including New Years, so I’m not using “Holiday” like a pansy). The Holiday Season is even more Holiday-y for me than for the rest of you because my birthday is December 30. So December is a double holiday trifecta for this guy; full of presents, fun times, and lots and lots of, you guessed it…chocolate.

I’m a lousy present giver (I once gave my little sister a My Little Pony for Christmas when she was 13 or so), but at least I’m not a hypocrite because I always have low expectations on the presents I receive too. Not because I expect the givers to spitefully reciprocate my last round of bad giving, but because I have a hard time coming up with something I want and would enjoy. But I’m always pleasantly surprised by what the gift givers come up with on their own. I guess the good gift givers in my life pay close attention to offhand comments I make throughout the year and get me stuff that I forgot I wanted: stuff that brings me a lot of satisfaction. Like the “Life” animal series Reba got me. I’ve been so happy and excited to have hours of that to be watching. Or the Ruth’s Chris gift card; I’ve never been and I’m a big steak fan, so it’s just time. Or the book about Israel’s version of Delta Force my Mom got me, or the massage certificate my in-laws gave me.

Other happenings over the break:

Reba opening the cool Willams & Sonoma Star Wars pancake molds and Darth Vader pancake flipper Davis got us, and laughing and asking if he was serious. She thought it was simply a Star Wars-themed pancake mix (not sure how that would even work) and assumed it must be a gag gift. Made things awkward.

Losing to Ryan in ping-pong. Bad lighting, non-regulation net height. Won’t happen again.

Discovering the great game Wits and Wagers.

Waiting for an hour to get into Cheesecake Factory for lunch. At 3 in the afternoon. I’m no interior design expert, but next time you’re in there tell me if you wouldn’t feel like the design was really tacky if it was a no-name restaurant. Also, I hate cheesecake but I don’t mind their cheesecake, because it’s the least cheesecakey tasting cheesecake in the world. So what does it tell all you cheesecake lovers that the cheesecake you all agree is the very best tastes the least like “cheesecake” and the most like regular pie/cake?

Playing in 6 foot deep snow with this guy and sledding off the top of a cabin roof at about 40 mph into a pile of powder 35 feet below.

Snow boots? My dad told me snow boots are for poor children; that the cool kids just put Gap bags and packing tape over their tennis shoes.

Here’s to me getting all you important people in my life amazing gifts next year!

Meeeeeeerrrrryyyyyy Christmas, beautiful Bedford Falls!!!!!

…

Ok, Here’s a post from D3T enthusiast, Layne. I don’t know him very well, so I’m not familiar with any of the people in this story. Thanks for the post, Layne! I hope to meet you in person someday!

…

When I transferred to BYU in January of 2003, I was already engaged to be married in the middle of February. So I had one of those awkward interim periods in which I needed a place to stay, but couldn’t sign a regular semester-long contract. And because he lacked imagination, my bishop wouldn’t give me an ecclesiastical endorsement if I was living with my fiancee. I had to find a place to live until it was BYU-legal for me and the future Mrs. to cohabitate. Luckily (or unluckily, as it turned out) for me I had a friend already attending the Y. Four weeks before I moved down to Provo, he assured me that YES, he was sure that I could stay at their house for a few weeks. He just needed to clear it with his roomies first. A few weeks passed. Two weeks to the move, he again assured me that while he still hadn’t double-checked with his roomies, YES, he was sure that I could stay at their house. Great, I had a place.

Well, school was starting Monday, and on Sunday night I was driving to Provo for the semester. On the way down I called my buddy and had the following conversation (To protect the guilty, let’s call my friend “Kristian”):

Me: Hey Kristian, see you in a bit.

Kristian: Um, err, let me talk to my roommates and I’ll call you back in a bit.

Me: Dude, school starts tomorrow! Are you serious? You said there was a spot at the house! I’ve turned down other offers already. I’m screwed!

Kristian: Oh yeah, I guess it does start tomorrow. Yeah, come by, we’ll figure something out.

Me:  (Thinking “Crap, this really sucks.” Sigh.) Ok. See you soon.

Well, after a tour of the house, a few things were obvious immediately:

1) The place was stink-hole. (A couple weeks after moving in, I distinctly remember “Friend” dry-heaving after warming some chili con carne in the microwave who’s last cleaning was 10 years prior. There was more food on the 6 walls of that microwave than there is in many home’s food pantries. Yuck. I won’t even tell you about the shower.)

2) There was no place for me to lay my head. I was toast.

Then when all seemed to be lost, I went upstairs and saw a door about 3 feet high. Hmm. What’s in here? The “Bum’s Crevasse” I was told. The Bums Crevasse was a little attic crawl space. It was 4 feet wide by 8 feet long, with the ceiling starting at 4.5 feet tall and sloping down to meet the floor 8 feet later. A tiny triangle room full of suitcases and other junk. For 6 weeks I slept in a sleeping bag on a thermarest camping pad in the Bum’s Crevasse. My roommates charged me the same amount for sleeping in a broom closet that they paid to sleep in a bed, have a closet, desk, and other amenities that I only dreamt of. Thanks for the great deal guys!  Being a bum is expensive I guess…

Given my experience, this guy is paying somewhere in the neighborhood of $350-$425 a month for this cozy setup

Luckily for me, Jami still wanted to marry me and I moved out 6 weeks after I moved in. Hallelujah.

What’s the worst place you’ve ever lived?

I have a friend who, upon discovering something great – a movie, a restaurant – simply will not rest until you too have tried that same thing. He prefers to be present as you are trying the thing he has recommended, looming with a mile-wide grin so full of hope and good will that you simply can’t break it to him that you don’t actually think Dane Cook is all that funny.

I’m not like that. I occasionally pass along recommendations for books and movies, but at the end of the day, I’m not all that invested in ensuring that other people experience the things I experience.

There are, however, two related exceptions to that rule.

The first is the developing world. If you’ve never had the chance to experience the chaotic freedom of Latin America, Africa, or Asia, I insist that you travel to one of them in the next 36 hours. There’s just honestly nothing like it. I’m grateful that we live in a place where there are federal agencies charged with ensuring that our meat doesn’t have leprosy, but sometimes it gets to be a little much. I’ve written about this before, and I’ll write about it again. And again and again.

The second exception is really just a specific example of the first. One day during our vacation in Thailand Melissa and I found ourselves at a tourist attraction by the name of Tiger Kingdom, whose business consists of charging tourists for the privilege of being locked in a cage with several live tigers. This is the sign that greets you at the entrance of Tiger Kingdom.

I’m sure I’ve never experienced as many intense emotional swings while reading a single sign.

“Whew, the tigers are hand-reared and very well-trained.

But yikes! They’re wild animals and need to be respected!

Oh, but they’re playful and will want to play with me! Fun!

But apparently playing often entails biting?!”

I don’t read Thai, but I’m guessing the Thai portion of the sign reads something like this, “We just wrote this sign in Thai to keep up appearances. No Thai person would come near these tigers.”

We forked over our money, signed a waiver the size of a post-it note and took our place in line outside the tiger cages, where we we saw this sign:

I am not going to lie: I was a little nervous during our wait. I’ve seen every existing TV show and YouTube clip that depicts animals attacking humans. (This one is particularly relevant.) Seriously. I’ve seen them all. And from my studies I’ve concluded that it happens fairly often. I’m pretty sure Sigfried and Roy’s tigers were considerably better-trained than the ones at Tiger Kingdom, and we all know how that worked out.

That’s the exhilarating, terrifying thing about the developing world: you know that you’re on your own. You’re not under the impression that some bureaucrat has been there before you and checked to make sure the tigers are properly fed and checked for rabies and don’t have pieces of sunglasses between their teeth. It’s up to you to assess – and bear – the risks of your actions. Which is kind of awesome. Until the US Embassy ships your left foot and a few fingers home for your decidedly closed-casket funeral.

Once the time came we were ushered into a large enclosure by a Thai adolescent carrying a short bamboo stick. It’s a well known zoological fact that tigers are powerless in the face of bamboo sticks, so that made me feel better. It also made me feel better to think working at Tiger Kingdom is the Thai equivalent of working at Lagoon, so I knew this kid had to be incredibly well-trained and certainly took his job very seriously.

If you EVEN THINK ABOUT lunging at me with that massive body that is a killing machine honed to perfection over millions of years I will whip you in the face with my little bamboo stick.

Inside the enclosure were four full-sized adult tigers. One tiger would have been one thing, because at least that way you could have kept your eyes on him at all times. But four? The good folks at Tiger Kingdom don’t just want you to see the tigers up close. They want you to pet them. And once you’ve petted them they want you to lean against them. And once you’ve leaned against them they want you to lie down on top of them.

In a process I still don’t entirely understand, somehow my fear of disappointing our Thai chaperone became greater than my fear of having my chest cavity punctured by a 4-inch incisor, and I meekly obeyed all of his increasingly dangerous orders. Every once in a while the tiger’s tail would whip me or he’d twitch and I would briefly, literally die, my spirit watching in horror several feet above my body.

“You guys all owe me $100.”  “What, why?”  “I convinced a guy to lie down next to a tiger today.”  “No, you didn’t.”  “Yep.  It wasn’t even that hard. He just obeyed my order to lie down on a tiger. Unbelievable.”

And then we went and saw the babies, Lolo and Lulu, who were about 2 months old. Baby tigers are lethally cute. Honestly. Melissa held one like a baby – which, I infer from the fact that she repeated this phrase over 300 times in the next 24 hours (“I held a tiger cub like a baby!,” accompanied by cradling motions), is way better than holding one in any other position – and still hasn’t gotten over it.

And suddenly, the motives behind this made a lot more sense.

America is the worst.

(For some bonus snake-holding pictures that are amazing in their own right, go here.)

Salt Lakers will recognize this one.  This place used to be an ice cream place.  Now it’s a sandwich place.  But it would be too much of a pain to just take down the huge rotating ice cream cone.  Next best solution?  Just paint it black.  No one will see it then.  “What ice cream cone?  No, really, what are you even talking about?  All I see out there is our Jimmy John’s sign.  What?  No.  That?  No, maybe that’s some sort of black cloud over there.  No.  I do not see an ice cream cone.  Whatever it is, it is devoid of all color, so it’s definitely not ice cream.  Pretty sure it’s nothing.”

You know, these questions about some random floating ice cream cone are starting to get really old.   Maybe you’re the one that’s crazy.

This is a car that parks in my office lot.  Not sure a lot of commentary is necessary here.  Just that this is obviously a very, very happy couple who really loves their happy, energetic brood, of two dogs, four cats, and three birds.  Except when Sassy and Gus are fighting (middle children!).  And when no one understands when they talk about their kids.  Regardless, it’s a family to be proud of, and one to show off to everyone that you’re driving in front of.

Taffy Town.  The brightly lit, fun colored sign says “Hey Kids!  Come on in! We’re a crazy place where fun is happening!!*”

“*Birds, if you touch our sign, we will stab you til you die.”

The GapKids seasonal marketing theme: WANT

WANT!

“Well, we’ve exhausted every possible secular quasi-virtue that one could associate with Christmas now.  Joy, Peace, Love, Family- they pretty much all suggest something on the yucky Christian side of Christmas, and none of them seem to pop off the store shelf.  What about if we just dispense with trying to deal with virtues or Christmas or even vaguely holiday cheer at all, in fact, just stop trying to disguise our motives at all?  What if we just have big block letters commanding shoppers to desire our mass-produced middling-quality products, as if that is the real reason for this holiday that we depend so much upon but do not believe in and don’t really understand?  And maybe we make it Christmasy by puting some sparkly coating on the command?  Love it.”

In the GapKids store it was a crass commercial message.  Pretty sure that by taking pictures of it, I turned it, I deconstructed and turned it into art.  Sort of cool.

Making me reminisce about the strong presence of Western Family in my childhood home, Macy brought home the Western Family knockoff of Life Cereal the other day.  It is called “goodchoice.” For the first day, the kids woke up and asked for Life.  But I jokingly told them that this is called goodchoice.  Now, for the last week, the kids wake up and ask me for goodchoice.  Molly carried around a little baggie of goodchoice Sunday afternoon, and then came in to report that she had spilled her goodchoice.  Props to Western Family for not trying too hard to ape the actual name of the cereal they’re copying.  And huge props to Western Family for putting such an awesome name on cereal.  We’ve honestly had a lot of fun this week mentioning our goodchoice in lots of interesting circumstances.  In fact, I’m getting hungry for some goodchoice right now.

And finally, getting close to Sunset on Thanksgiving.  Hope everyone’s enjoying the season.  Let me end with the text of Jack and Avery Donagee’s Christmas Card this year:  “Happy Holidays! . . (open card) . . . is what terrorists say.  Merry Christmas.”

We all have pet peeves, but I’m talking about something different. Pet peeves are things that annoy or anger you. I’m talking about things that depress you. Things that douse your spirit and make you feel like there’s something to be sad about. Often this process is subconscious. You’re not aware of what’s going on but you realize you are feeling badly and you think “Wait a minute, that’s why I feel this way; the light in here is dim” or “I’m in a run down strip mall with very ugly, cheap signage”  or  “Oh, right it’s because that woman has straight, long hair going down past her bum” Or “The women with the long hair is also wearing a fanny pack.”

Here’s an example. When I was a teenager I came upstairs and found a grown up sibling of mine—who shall remain nameless—fully sprawled out on the couch. I think he might have been sick that day. So what’s wrong with lying on the couch, Christian? We all do that, right?

Well this person was doing it in sweats and undershirt. And these weren’t Juicy Couture sweats either. These were 80’s sweats. Remember how sweat pants used to have tight elastic bands at the bottom of the legs? The thought of lying in those sweats, having them bunch up more and more with every movement you make, that alone gets me down. Nothing in this world worse than bunching. And this was on a warm day. In the middle of the afternoon. And if we haven’t lost any readers to suicide in the last two paragraphs, that’s because you haven’t heard the clincher yet. In between this person and the couch was a solid layer of…newspaper. He was reading the newspaper and the pages he wasn’t holding in his hands had wormed their way under his entire body, which he didn’t seem to mind. I hate the feel of newspaper even on my fingertips. But the thought of lounging around on it on a warm day; that dry material touching my bare feet and elbows and maybe even the part of my back skin which would be exposed through my shirt riding up from moving around on the couch. That scene depressed me and still does when I remember it.

But I know I have been, and surely still am the cause of other people’s depression. I don’t watch a whole lot of TV, and if I do it’s usually in the evening. But every once in a great while I want to watch TV or a movie in the daytime on a Saturday or some other non-work day. This is quite depressing to Reba. Or I think about how much lazing around and TV watching I did on my honeymoon and I get depressed. Back then I thought that an ideal vacation was one in which you just lay around. Not even at the pool or the beach. But just lay around and read and sleep and watch TV inside. Even on the bed. It didn’t help that the place we were staying at had a cable channel that showed Magnum P.I. and Rockford Files almost all day long. We were in beautiful Florida and I spent most my time watching TV in bed. Yuck.

You know what else depresses me? Goths. What’s going on there? That sounds like a Jay Leno Joke and also makes me sound like I’m 90, but I mean it. What the freak is really going on there?

Also people yelling at their kids in public places.

And most of Wyoming.

Seeing a bunch of cars in a strip club parking lot in the late morning/early afternoon. Or even better on Christmas or some other holiday.

And split level homes.

People spending a lot of time in casinos.

And the way old people’s homes look on the inside.

And most Russian people.

And the drive from Salt Lake to Reno.

The thought of sorting through coupons, then shopping with them (which Reba does sometimes).

And pet hair on people’s furniture.

Seeing a family out to dinner where all the kids are on their own gaming system/movie player. Saw it the other night. Even the 4 year old was hooked up to on his own little machine the entire dinner. Slit my wrist.

Over-31 Mormon single adult wards.

What depresses you?