The Growing List of Things I Don't Understand

When I was 20 I knew everything, but now I'm five years from being three times that there's a growing list of things I don't understand.

Why do women ask questions when they don't really want an answer? Why do people say bad things about themselves when you give them a compliment?

How come no one knows how to merge? Why do people lead by being rude and nasty, when if they simply asked courteously I'd do everything I could to help them? Does this work well in other areas of their life?

Why does my favorite football coach antagonize the media every day on every question? He persists in his East Coast brusqueness when they are just doing their job, and their job promotes his job, and earns him the cushy corner office with the carpet and leather-bound chairs.

We pulled out all the combat troops out of Iraq, but left behind 50,000 in non-combat roles. Isn't there a strong likelihood that 50,000 Americans, in an unstable country with a history of 5000 years of mayhem and religious fanaticism, are likely to become a target for insurgents, that retaliation, sabotage, terrorism, hostage-taking and suicide bombings are a certainty, and within a year there'll be a act of reprisal so horrific it's likely to pull us back into this mess? The war in Iraq has been the longest in U.S. history. It has cost 4,000 American lives and billions of dollars. It plunged us into centuries-old hatreds and sealed the fate of the world. If we're leaving we ought to leave. It seems to me we should have left the day after Saddam Hussein was captured. I don't understand global politics. Most days I don't want to.

Why do I pull all my putts to the right, and if work really hard at correcting this, I start pushing them to the left? How can a hole four feet away be so hard to reach? If it exasperates me so much, why do I always come back tomorrow? It's a game for fools, which explains my fascination with it.

The list grows daily and is inexhaustible. Why does my family leave a quarter cup of milk in the bottom of the jug? Why do we fall asleep with the light on and kick off the covers? Why does everyone charge a fee to make a payment, and answer the phone with annoying recorded voices that ask a dozen irritating questions before you can get to a real person?

In a just world, lemon meringue pie would be good for you, and all the vitamins would be in a bacon. To reach 60 you have to let go of foolish hopes for justice and logic and consistency. Just tap the brakes until everyone joins the stream of traffic. Eventually we'll all get where we're going, and someone will wake up and turn off the lights.