Justin and Korey met up with Santa at my work on Christmas Eve. When we got home Justin said, “I’m not saying this to be mean to Santa or anything, but he’s not as fat as the Santas in the pictures.”

This got me to thinking that if you preclude your statements with the above disclaimer, you can pretty much say anything you want, so here goes:

I’m not saying this to be mean or anything, but:

• Why do companies have website contact forms if they never check them?
• Why did my bank charge me a $10 inactive fee for a Visa that was never activated and has been in the landfill for over a year?
• If pharmaceutical and medical equipment companies really cared about their customers, they’d charge less for drugs and machines.
• If organic producers really cared about their customers, organic stuff would be less expensive. Update:  If the government really cared about our health, they would subsidize organic food producers.
• Why does the media hardly ever get ALL the facts correct, but we still believe their story?
• Why do people care that some dried up singer or actor had a drug addiction they overcame and then buy their stupid books so they have money to spend on said drugs again?
• I don’t think telling the world about your past drug and alcohol problems helps anyone. Especially kids who can point and say, “she did it and she’s ok now, so I’m going to try it.” Keep it to yourself, who cares? Unless you’ve died from it, kids won’t get the right message. Write a book after your dead and I’ll buy it.
• Why do dogs throw up on freshly shampoo-ed carpet?
• Why do people continue to talk about themselves on Twitter. Unless you are particularly funny, I could care less what you are doing at this moment. If you can’t find something meaningful to share in 140 characters or less, don’t share anything at all.

Here ends my jaded rant. I can go back to normal now.

Epilogue:  The boys and I watched the movie “Up” last night. Korey jumped and squirmed around on the bed during the action scenes at the end▬ trying to help Russell and Carl get back into the blimp. Justin said, “That was supposed to be funny, but it was sad because when the wife died it reminded me of Nanny.”  They both cried. We all cried.