I was fighting a cold this week so all of my thoughts are a touch more shallow than normal.  How is that possible you ask?  See below.

Cold medicine.

Let’s be honest America, cold medicine doesn’t work.  Remember how great sudafed used to work before it became the key component of meth?  Me either.  But I would have bought some this week.  How about those Zycam swabs?  Foolproof right?  Wrong.  But since they are no longer available I sure miss them.  Cold medicines are a scam.  We really should just quit buying them, and take the damn three days off of work.  The world kept spinning without me this week.

Bad neighborhoods.

My wife and I have a favorite Mexican restaurant.  We eat there almost every week.  I suggested we mix it up and try a new one this week.  The knock on the one I wanted to try was that it was in a “rough” neighborhood.  Which led us to conclude that our usual place is also in a “rough” neighborhood.  Which ultimately led to a talk about how we actually live in a “rough” neighborhood.  For us, the degree to which an area is “rough” is really just a scale of familiarity, not actual roughness.

Government ethics.

This week in the Statehouse, House Bill 1002, the new ethics bill, was considered by the House for floor amendments.  One amendment was proposed.  The proposal recommended a broad code of conduct to be implemented on “lobbyists.”  Privately, many of us in the industry know at whom the amendment was directed.  However, this type of dance has become very predictable.  It goes like this:  “we elected officials have become untrusted by the public, so let’s come up with rules that will force OTHERS to behave differently.”  So don’t you members of the public feel better now that someone else has to quit tricking them into not being trustworthy?  I sure do. (The amendment was filed but not moved).

French fries.

I quit eating them a few years ago as a very small part of my diet.  I don’t miss them.  But when I splurged on fries last night, I found out how much I really miss ketchup.  I have since found out that the diet I am on may well have been a conspiracy against Heinz–since all of my ketchup delivery mechanisms are out.  I am looking for healthy and socially acceptable ways to bring ketchup back home–please share your weird uses for this Reagan vegetable.  Nothing obscene please.

Valentine’s Day.

Aah, the day designed to remind men to tell the ones they love that they love them.   It’s also the day that if it actually works as designed, you probably should have already been dumped.  Seriously, were you ever aimlessly plodding through life without purpose, meaning or love and then, WHAM!, it was Valentine’s Day that saved you?  Never.  Take it from the Contrarian, it’s the flowers and chocolates you send on the random miserable days in January and March that work far better.

Refunds.

I apparently overpaid for my electronic subscription to the Indy Star last month.  Put that in the irony file.  This refund is hilarious though.  I got a check for $2.00 in the mail from the Scar’s business office.  Not a typo on the amount or the nickname.  I am thinking about framing it and haunting their bookkeeper for months or even years as he or she agonizes over why I haven’t cashed it.

Or…maybe I will just go buy two bucks worth of robotussin and call in sick…again.

Have a good week, deeper thoughts will return next week, maybe.