T.V. used to be just for fun. We watched light fiction like Lucy, or Newhart or the CBS Evening News. We could flip on the T.V. knowing that we wouldn't be troubled by thought. Then PBS came along. All of a sudden, thought was a requirement for watching television. You had to think if you were going to watch intellectual fare like Masterpiece Theatre, Jeeves and Wooster, or Sesame Street.

Home video briefly helped to stem the tide of intelligent programming. A trip to the video store allowed you to rent shows starring comic geniuses like Harold Lloyd, Mel Brooks and Arnold Schwarzenegger.

While rentals were growing more popular, the Federal Government gently encouraged PBS to find ways to survive on its own by thoughtfully reducing its funding each year. The entire annual PBS budget wouldn’t cover the catering at Brittany Spears’ next wedding.

Looking to get its share of the video pie, PBS starting selling boxed set. You can buy Ken Burns’ The War for a mere $130 -- which works out to approximately fifteen cents per thoughtful hour of entertainment.

In my teens and twenties my body and I saw things in exactly the same way; we were virtually inseparable. We had an understanding. I fed it all the junk I wanted, never took it out for any kind of formal exercise and it maintained its trim, teenage shape. Somewhere (I think around my thirtieth birthday) it quietly abandoned our agreement and started to change.

My waist must have been in on the secret because it ballooned up until my belt got too tight. Thinking this was a temporary situation, I switched to a new, larger belt and (just for good measure) a new larger wardrobe. Sure my body was expanding, but I knew it would come to its senses sooner or later.

You see them on TV all the time; houses which are nicer, cleaner, and more attractive than yours the same way a runway model is more appealing than any member of the 1972 East German Women's Swim Team. The camera lovingly pans around showing scenes of impossible beauty like an elegant kitchen filled with matching dish ware, a living room in which the furniture does not appear to have been purchased at a trailer-park tag sale, and (most incredibly of all) a bathroom in which the towels not only coordinate but are hung neatly on gleaming towel bars instead of being heaped on the floor. When you see a house like that you've just to ask yourself, What do those homeowners have that I don't have?

The answer is simple.

A small army of production personnel including three professional designers and an uptight director known in the television industry as 'Hansel the Fussy'. Before the cameras are even permitted on the property, the house is completely remade from top to bottom.

For three years I had an arch-nemesis who taxed my patience, cunning and intelligence. This would be a whole lot cooler if she stood more than two feet tall and weighed more than more than fifteen pounds. I'm talking, of course, about actress Linda Hunt.

Not really.

I wish it was as impressive as that. My arch-nemesis was a black cat who decided our backyard bird feeder also made a dandy feline feeder.

So, why was I in Barnes and Nobel at 9:55 p.m. frantically searching for a copy of The Crucible by Arthur Miller (the special Dover edition with the deleted scene)? If you don't know the answer, you're obviously not a parent.

My sixteen-year-old son is a tragic victim of the Educational-Industrial Complex. Without regard for his personal feelings, his instructors expect him to learn. In his Humanities and English classes this involves telling him to acquire and assimilate certain great works of literature; The Crucible, Atlas Shrugged, and Dick and Jane Austen. In order to give him time to appreciate the subtleties of these great works, the instructors assign them weeks before he has to read them. Sadly his busy schedule of vital activities like texting, video games, television, and internet surfing makes it impossible for him to remember that he needs the book until the night before it's due.

Tuesday, 6:15 p.m.

I'm so excited. We're going to repaint the bathroom and I want to blog the whole experience so that I won't forget a single wonderful moment.

We need to repaint because the original color – the color we've lived with for the last fourteen years – is the exact same shade of yellow as a fading bruise. In the mirror, our reflections have the jaundiced look of recent face-lift patients; all we lack is a row of stitches in front of each ear.

Fortunately, the inadequate illumination over the vanity keeps us from getting a good view of ourselves. Even with four 100 watt bulbs, the mid-seventies industrial grade frosted-glass fixture slows the rushing flow of light to a barely visible trickle and filters out all of best colors. What remains shrouds our faces, casting dark shadows under our eyes and adding to the post-Beverly-Hills-doctor's-visit ambiance.

So long as we're going to repaint, it makes sense to re-grout the tub as well. Disturbing patches of black mildew blotch the formerly white grout. Against the yellow bath tile, they give the whole tub area the appearance of a crime scene surrounded by striped police tape. When I step from the bath, I always expect to leave a chalk outline instead of a bathtub ring.

It's not easy being honest. Especially when you honestly want to dismember the person ahead of you in the checkout line.

My wife and I dashed out to the new local Gigant-o-mart (recently built approximately 2.6 miles from the old local Gigant-o-mart) for a few vital grocery items; Cheetos, Poptarts, and two skeins of fuzzy purple yarn. Like sprinters approaching the finish line, we dashed to the “10 Items or Less� express lane and found ourselves cut off by a pair of women who were not intellectual giants in the area of being able to distinguish between ten and two hundred items. Between its bowed-out wheels and ballooned-out sides, their cart looked like a fat lady with weak ankles wearing a plastic fishnet skirt.

Stuffed inside they had several hundred individual silk flowers; more than the store carried. I suspect they actually brought flowers into the store just so they could take them through the check-out line ahead of us. I pitied the single vase quivering nervously at the front of the cart. The flowers-to-vase ratio was similar to the entrants-to-winners ratio in the average magazine sweepstakes.

As the cashier pulled out the first flower, fumbled to find the bar code and swiped it across the scanner, my wife and I did the most logical thing we could think of. We crossed our arms and stared at the women in the meanest way possible while muttering under our breath about how rude they were.

Really.

Your mission – and you don't have any choice about accepting it – is to go under deep cover and penetrate one of the most ruthless, politically charged environments in the world today ... a typical American Business Office. Should you succeed in infiltrating this complex and frequently chaotic organization, your objective is to accomplish actual work. Be aware that many other agents have attempted this mission and failed.

As part of your cover, we will arrange a vocabulary coach to teach you important business terms such as debenture, venture capital, monetization, potential actualization, actualized potential, next-level thinking, thinking outside of the box, and proactive, forward-thinking, next-level, bleeding-edge actualization strategic productization.

Stephen King has made himself a wealthy man by writing books that play on people's deepest fears; scary dogs (Cujo), scary prom dates (Carrie), and the scary consequences of meddling with dark forces to resurrect the dead (Harry Potter and the Semetary of Pets). In real life there aren't that many demon dogs, telekinetic adolescents, or cursed burial grounds – even in New Jersey. I respectfully suggest that Mr. King expand his repertoire to include the things that really scare people like mortgages, dental appointments and household clutter.

A lot of my personal clutter starts out in its larval form -- mail.

When my son was born nineteen years ago, coupons for disposable diapers appeared in my mailbox within the week. The Pampers Network of Spies and Informants was on to me. The military should have used those people for intelligence gathering in Iraq. Not only would they have found the Weapons of Mass Destruction, but they could have sent them Pampers coupons as well.

Realizing that my son’s bottom was a virtual gold mine, other diaper companies got in on the act. Since I wouldn’t need diapers unless I fed my son, those companies passed my address on to formula and baby food companies. Those companies were quick to recognize that my son would be hungrier if he played a lot, so they gave my address to toy companies.

I could chart my son’s development by the letters I received.

For the first time in fifteen years, we bought a new car. It's a good car ... a well-built car ... and, with proper care and maintenance, it might last until we're emotionally ready to face another shopping trip to the dealership.

It's not that the dealer treated us badly. We were greeted as honored guests; welcomed with chilled bottled water and open arms. The salesman acted as though we were the only customers in the world, despite the fact that there was a gaggle of bored-looking people hanging out by the service window. He treated us like Kings.

Which is to say that we had to make important decisions approximately every fifteen seconds.

Nothing gets my heart beating like new technology. Well, that's not quite true – a sweeping vista, a beautiful woman, and an unexpected fall from a great height all rate right up there on the edging-into-coronary-territory scale. Still, seductive new gadgets do about the same for my heart rate as a four-hour cardio session or five minutes of hip-hop videos.

Which is why my new favorite device is my Chumby.

A Chumby is a tiny electronic wonder, a miracle of the modern age, a steroid-fueled, internet-connected alarm-clock-slash-info-center. It is the Arnold Schwarzenegger of bedside electronics; The Awakenator.

My oldest son is going to the University to study theater. I blame his second grade teacher.

That was his first ever exposure to drama, as a performer not an audience member. Miss Edelstein’s class delighted a classroom full of restless parents with their interpretation of Stop, Look and Listen: A Lesson in Crosswalk Safety. For those of you unfamiliar with this production, it’s a timeless tale which artfully weaves the motif of pedestrian safety with that of imminent, gruesome vehicular death. We were all truly moved to yawn.

Really.

Superheroes are big in America right now. Larger-than-life characters including Spiderman, Mr. Fantastic and Al Gore all use their special skills to try to save the world. Spiderman slings webs, Mr. Fantastic stretches himself, and Al Gore writes books. Every one of them is fighting some kind of super-villain from mutants and aliens to corrupt politicians.

The trouble is that the real world is a little short on actual super-villains. When was the last time you were driving down the street and some lunatic in a Goblin costume buzzed you on a hoverboard? That sort of thing happens about as often as lottery winners who actually do stay at their jobs. What I really need from the tights-and-capes brigade are heroes who actually take on the things that cause difficulties in my own personal, day-to-day life.

Consider road construction, for example.

I want to take a moment and talk about a serious scourge which is sweeping this great nation of ours. No matter where you go, you’re likely to run into someone who “crafts�. These poor souls are likely to be caught illicitly using stoneware or strung out on multicolored yarn.

Back in the nineteenth century crafting was a necessity. Hardy pioneer souls who wanted to give their rough hewn log cabins a makeover (“American primitive is sooo last century�) couldn’t just pop into the nearest Sam Walton’s General Store for all new furnishings and decorations. They had to make it themselves, dagnabit! Lack of skill was not an obstacle. Nor was a lack of materials. They worked in whatever they could find; weathered wood, dried apples, or pony poop. Pioneers routinely crafted actual decorations made from the hair of deceased relatives.

Really.

Here are a few handy phrases to keep in mind while training your young person to drive:

Objects in the rear view mirror are closer than they appear. So are objects in the windshield.

Before you set out, do a walk-around inspection of the car with your young person to look for any potential hazards such as flat tires and also so you'll be able to remember the car as it was.

No matter how hard you push on the imaginary brake pedal on the passenger's side of the vehicle, the car will not stop...until you scream 'STOP' loudly enough to be heard over a hurricane and clutch dashboard in the classic 'I’m about to die' position.

Remember, your young person will never be as good at driving as you would like.

Nor are they as bad as you think.

My eldest son graduated from High School this year and I couldn’t be more pleased. Not that there was ever any question, it’s just that sometimes graduation seemed a long way off like a dream of a distant beautiful land or the hope of a fast-food restaurant getting your order right on the first try.

He’ll be moving out this summer to study at the university. My heart will go with him ... as will some of my money.

Not that his education hasn’t already cost me a bundle.

DISCLAIMER: This article may contain material which is not deemed funny by certain individuals. Author not responsible for your reaction to this article. Do not read this article if you have had any of the following; recent surgery or illness, fainting spells, nausea, or a history of mental illness in your family. Article is packed by word count, not by volume--some settling may have occurred during shipping. Sanitized for your protection. Close cover before striking.

(I want to apologize for that rather obnoxious legal paragraph, but my lawyer assures me it is necessary.)

Take a new job at any company in America -- from stock boy at a 'Mom and Pop' grocery store to janitor for the CIA's Division of Double Secret Incarceration -- and I guarantee that within a day you'll hear two things from your employer.

First, someone will say you've joined "a fast-paced team environment." Then they'll say, "We're like a family here."

Yeah, that special kind of family which includes annual performance reviews, termination for cause, and the ever-present threat of layoffs if the economy goes south. The only real families like that are heavily involved in illicit activities. Does your employer really want you to think you work for the Sopranos?

On the other hand, maybe it's a hint that we should run our families more like businesses. With the proper application of management theory we should be able to get our families turned around and profitable in no time. In that spirit, I'm happy to present the Cummings Family Annual Report for Fiscal '07.

The line between civilization and savagery is frighteningly thin; in my case, as thin as a wire.

I came home from a tough week at work and my wife said those words that no modern man wants to hear.

"The internet is down."

Internet? Down?

I contemplated an evening with no access to the multitude of on-line resources; no visiting the NPR website for insightful commentary on the day’s events; no researching the positions of presidential candidates on MySpace; no watching YouTube videos of people hurting themselves in amusing ways with skateboards. In short, I had no way to entertain myself.

Except, of course, cable television with its two-hundred-plus channels of programming. Finding comical injury videos was still an option, even if insightful news commentary was unlikely.

It was just a bad dream, but it scared me. I don't know that anyone's ever been acquitted of murder because their mate was a bed hog, but it wouldn't surprise me.

When my wife and I were first married, we had an iron-framed, sway-backed, double bed that my parents had given me when I went away to college. It didn't have box springs and the mattress sagged in the middle. All night long we rolled toward the center like twin avalanches tumbling down a mountain. By mutual agreement, we moved to the edges of the bed. As each of us rolled to the outside, we pulled the covers with us. It wasn't uncommon for the sheet to be suspended eight inches above the bed and to be taut enough to serve as a trampoline. In a matter of days, the fabric was showing signs of stress in the middle. We were in serious danger of being shot through opposite walls of our bedroom if the sheet ever gave way.

My wife said we had to get a new bed or one of us would have to sleep on the floor. I said if she wanted to sleep on the floor that was fine by me. She said if anyone slept on the floor it would be me. I said we had to get a new bed.

For sheer, unadulterated, adrenaline-fueled pleasure, nothing beats changing a tire on a dark road at midnight ... except maybe memorizing the U.S. Tax Code, or bathing an angry cat, or even working as the assistant to a knife-thrower nicked-named "Fred the Fumbler".

Really.

At least that's what I kept telling myself when I had a jack handle in my fist and a flashlight clenched between my teeth. "Isn't this fun?" I growled in the cheerfully manic fashion usually associated with individuals whose hobbies include repossessing cars and scaring small children.

It was spring again and my once disciplined lawn had forgotten all of the lessons I taught it last summer and had fallen into disarray. My orderly sea of green had become an unruly mess with tufts large enough to hide zebra-stalking lions.

So I mowed.

While the mower's snout growled and chewed its way through the grass, I pondered the eternal mysteries. Why are we born? Why do we die? Why weren't my teenage sons mowing?

Well, to be honest, the answer to that last one is pretty simple. Yard work isn't cool. Teens who voluntarily engage in household chores are about as common as Frat Boys campaigning for temperance.

All of the clocks in my life have turned against me. I'm sure of it. Some of them run fast, some run slow, and some are just plain weird. I'm pretty sure that they talk to each other at night -- trading messages encoded in ticks, tocks and the occasional bong -- finding new ways to drive me mad. Or maybe it's the change in Daylight Savings Time.

I first noticed this with the digital clock in my mini-van. Some of the little LED segments don't light up anymore. Instead of showing a proper time like 3:26, it reads 3cL. How am I supposed to interpret that? Am I going to be late for my three-thirty appointment? Or early?

The worst clock in the house is the one on the microwave. Like its cousin in the car, its display has missing segments; only these render it unreadable. Instead of nuking my popcorn for 2:35 seconds, I end up with something that looks like Klingon. When I hit the buttons, I'm no longer certain if I'm setting the power to reheat or the phasers to stun.

Imagine you're having a casual dinner with friends -- a beach picnic, a backyard barbecue, a formal meal during an international trade summit -- and suddenly one of your companions starts talking about an embarrassing personal condition starting with the letter 'H'. I'm talking, of course, about halitosis.

"Yep," they say, "I thought I just had bad breath, but my doctor told me I'm suffering from a condition called 'hal-i-tosis'. He said it could be treated with a medicine called breath-tosterone."

While you're busy moving all of the sharp objects safely out of reach, your friend goes on about the benefits of this new wonder drug.

Before I get started on this essay, I need to pause for a moment and surrender my special laminated 'Manly Guy' ID card and secret decoder ring. It's a shame about the card. The front has my name, age, height and weight listed accurately to within forty-three percent. The back lists handy guy phrases and useful profanities in eight languages including Swahili, Polish and Esperanto. But, since I'm about to admit that I sort of ... sometimes ... when the mood takes me ... enjoy shopping, I can't be a card-carrying guy any more.

Not for clothes. Let me be clear on that. In general I'd prefer an audit by an IRS Agent named Vinnie 'The Actuary' Gambone to clothes shopping. Something that looks good on anyone else -- a good-looking guy, a store mannequin, the floor -- is rejected by my body the way a transplant patient rejects a mismatched liver. You can actually see the attractiveness of the clothing fleeing from my proximity and leaving me standing in a wrinkled heap of cloth that might be an expensive suit or a dust rag with delusions of grandeur. On me, ten-thousand dollars worth of Armani looks like ten cents worth of Rayon.

I confine my shopping to 'guy' things like technology and entertainment products.

I have remote control children.

This hope-giving fact came to light before my oldest reached his first birthday. Ten months of near-constant parenting had left me with the energy of a week-old corpse, only not as pretty and definitely more putrid. I was lying on the couch -- held down by unusually thick strands of gravity -- watching my son play in the middle of the living room carpet. He found something interesting and lifted it towards his lips. From my vantage point I couldn't tell if it was a discarded raisin, a lost chocolate chip, or a deceased insect. Too tired to move, I called out, "Stop!"

A miracle! My son's hand paused in mid-air and he turned to look at me and then he ate whatever it was. Okay, so the technique needed work, but the basic principle was sound.

When the phone rings it's like an alert that you're about to receive an unexpected gift. You drop whatever you're doing -- cleaning house, watching television, rescuing a cat from a tree -- and run to grab the phone. Too often, instead of a present you get a booby prize and find yourself talking to a telemarketer.

"Hello?" you answer. The babble of voices in the background gives you a clue that this isn't a pleasant social call from a long forgotten friend.

"Hello sir," a voice says, "first let me assure you that we aren't trying to sell you anything." Second clue; except during Girl Scout Cookie Season your friends never tell you they aren't trying to sell you something.

Earlier this year Microsoft Corporation (tm) released Windows Vista (registered trademark). The Computer Users Community greeted it with an enthusiastic yawn despite the fact that retailers pushed Vista as if it was an invention on a par with the wheel, the electric light, and that bathroom cleaner with scrubbing bubbles.

By contrast, when Apple announced the iPhone the geek world went nuts so fast you'd think that every one sold was going to include a free date with a Sports Illustrated swimsuit model. This excitement came despite the fact that the iPhone costs more than other phones, doesn't really do anything they don't and locks you into a single provider.

In the tech world Steve Jobs is a rock star of Jaggeresque proportions. Bill Gates is more like an American Idol contestant who makes it on the show, but gets eliminated before you really get to know him.

Fortunately, he has billions and billions of dollars with which to console himself.

Guys, face it, we're notorious for missing the subtle cues that a woman is angry; the slight flush in her cheeks, a widening of her eyes, and the unnecessarily vigorous chopping of vegetables like carrots and celery (especially when she's not actually cooking). These are the feminine equivalents of a snake's rattle or an IRS letter which makes liberal use of the words "irregularities" and "audit". A smart fellow would know that a serious storm was a-comin' and it's time to batten down the hatches for a good emotional soaking.

A smart fellow, though, wouldn't be in this kind of situation. He would have picked up on the earlier (and far more subtle) verbal cues. Women speak in subtext, but sadly they don't come with subtitles.

When people say that the romance has gone out of their marriage, they generally mean they've had children. Parenthood is a major toll booth on the expressway of romance.

Before children married life was one long date with art-house films, concerts and exotic restaurants. After delivery it turned into Disney movies, recitals and restaurants with play areas and meals which featured a free toy. Our married friends tried to warn us, by telling frightening stories whenever we ran into them in public.

"You won't believe what happened last week," they'd say. "We were picking up burgers on the way home from ... excuse me ... Jeffrey, we don't eat gum we found on the floor. Now, where was I? Oh yeah, the burger palace and anyway ... sorry ... Cindy Mr. Bear does NOT want a bath in the fountain. No he doesn't want to dive for coins either. Give him here this minute. If you can't take care of ... JEFFREY! Put your pants back on!"

I just finished reading Stephen King's horror novel Cell. It's a frightening tale of the near future in which a mysterious pulse turns cell phone users into mindless zombies. At the terrifying climax the zombies herd the heroes into an abandoned building and then ...

WARNING: The following description contains concepts and images dangerous to anyone with a heart condition, a weak stomach, an aversion to mathematics, is pregnant or may become pregnant or anyone who is related to someone who might possibly suffer from these ailments.

At the terrifying climax, the zombies herd the heroes into an abandoned building and force them to make sense of a cell phone bill! Shared minutes? Are those the times someone felt particularly close to their phone? Rollover minutes? Something for cell-owning dogs, perhaps? In network? Out of network? Regular? Roaming?

I didn't play with many fashion dolls as a little girl. I had the mandatory Barbie as specified in the Federal Mattel Act of 1959, but the way she dressed she really didn't count as a fashion doll.

My Barbie lived in a little blue steamer trunk along with her collection of clothes. No lace and frills for her, my Barbie's clothes were handmade by my Granny. The selection was more crochet than couture. Instead of a ball gown, my doll was decked out in a granny-square dress -- Homespun Barbie.

"Why is my curfew nine o'clock?" my eighteen-year-old son asked. "On a weekend. In the summer."

"Because I need my sleep," I answered.

When my kids are out at night, I'm restless and sleepless until they come home. By this point in my life I had expected I'd be sleeping like a baby.

Of course, anyone who has ever had their own personal infant recognizes that in terms of accuracy, this phrase ranks right up there with your call is very important to us, we appreciate your honest feedback, and my goal as mayor is to listen to the people.

On the other hand, if the phrase "sleep like a baby" was intended to mean briefly and infrequently, it might be more accurate. Babies are born with no consideration for normal human schedules. In this regard, they're a lot like telemarketers.

I always believed in long engagements. Until I had an actual, living, breathing fiancee of my own. At that point if it had been possible, the wedding would have taken place before the proposal. I wanted to seal the deal before she discovered my failings and inadequacies.

You guys know exactly which deficiency I'm talking about. That's right, I can't keep track of anything.

Our first apartment as newlyweds was so small our phone number only had five digits. We had to buy our furniture from the Mattel Barbie Dreamhouse (tm) collection. The oven (a masterpiece of industrial miniaturization) couldn't actually accommodate a regular sized cookie sheet or cake pan. All of our desserts looked like petit-fours and we had Cornish Game Hens instead of roast chickens.

We inhabited something with less actual living space than most recreational vehicles. It should have been impossible for me to lose track of anything, let alone an entire pair of pants.

I've been thrust back into the world of dating. So has my wife. Being happily married we didn't expect to have to deal with the pressures of institutionalized romance again. What we hadn't counted on was being involved in our children's dates.

It turns out that "dating" has gotten a lot more complicated in the more than two decades since we were actively in the game. What used to be a fairly simple and straight-forward transaction -- the exchange of dinner and the cost of a movie ticket for some pleasant company and the possibility of a goodnight kiss -- has become a negotiation as complex as any brokered by Donald Trump. Unwritten rules abound and whenever our sons talk about it my wife and I glaze over like octogenarians forced to watch Hip Hop videos.

My children have always believed in magic. When they were little they were big fans of the Tooth Fairy, the Easter Bunny and Santa Claus. Now it's the Toilet Paper Fairy, the Laundry Bunny and ... well ... Santa still makes the top three so long as he comes through with the goods.

If you've avoided a reproductive dip in the gene pool, you've probably never heard of the Toilet Paper Fairy. Late at night, when the house is quiet and dark, the Toilet Paper Fairy emerges from under the stairs and checks the thickness of each installed roll. Deficient rolls are replaced from the Strategic Toilet Paper Reserves which are stashed in an undisclosed location known only to the Toilet Paper Fairy and Vice President Cheney.

At least that's what my children think.

My son was involved in an accident last week. Yes, he was driving. No, he doesn't have a license. Yes, he was on a cell phone at the time. No, he's not in trouble. The other driver was on a cell phone, too. The only damage was a couple of broken eggs. They were both driving shopping carts at the time.

When people get behind the handle of a shopping cart, they forget anything they know about the rules of the road. The aisles of your local MegaFood store resemble rush hour on the LA freeway system during a major earthquake.

When my wife said it was time to clean the fridge, I considered running away to join the circus as the new assistant for Lefty the Lion Tamer, or maybe the French Foreign Legion, or something really extreme like the Boy Scouts.

It's not the contents of the fridge which terrify me. Sure, the fuzz on the cheese may be old enough to vote in some states and has achieved the low level of sentience normally associated with Political Strategists and the guy who designed the shrink-wrap packing on CDs. There's also the vast array of unidentifiable foodstuffs which have been carefully preserved in individual containers. The margarine tub is particularly problematic because we're no longer certain if it contains non-dairy spread or applesauce.

None of that is as terrifying as the thought of cleaning the outside of the fridge.

Like a lot of small towns in America, my little village of Nowell-by-the-Sea was a poorly planned accident. The only difference is that the buildings average about eight inches in height.

The accident started when my wife sent me to a department store in November and I happened to find that they had their Christmas decorations marked half off. (They wanted to clear the stuff out to make room for the Valentine's candy.)

On the display of tiny ceramic buildings, electric bulbs glowed warmly through plastic windows, casting light across the cotton-wool snow. Miniature plaster people stood in their winter best admiring a spiky Christmas tree festooned with over-sized gold garland. My breath caught in my throat and the guy part of my brain said, "This is just like being mayor of your very own town."

That was completely untrue, of course, but when I got home I showed my wife the beginnings of a brand new holiday tradition.

Modern man has trouble keeping up with technology. Then again, modern man gets lost easily. For that matter ancient man, medieval man, renaissance man, industrial man -- and pretty men throughout all of history -- got lost easily.

Getting lost is a guy's right -- a privilege of manhood. Of course, no guy will ever actually admit to being lost. Let's say that some guy sets out for a drive from New York to Boston and winds up in Hawaii. If anyone challenges him, he'll say, "It was faster this way. We avoided the traffic on the 405."

Marriage is about passion. Loving passionately, living passionately, arguing passionately ... about the most trivial matters imaginable.

Really.

Anybody whose marriage has outlasted the honeymoon can tell you that no lawyers pleading a case before the supreme court ever argued more energetically than a couple trying to settle the question of who controls the TV remote.