THIRTY-FIVE THINGS

...you don't (or at least it's probably best not to) think about when you're in the furniture outlet shopping for a new living room set to put in the suburban townhouse you will close on (and move into) later this month...

1. Floods.
2. The Super Bowl is in February now.
3. It's sixty degrees outside. In February.
4. You are helping to usher in the Ownership Society your fearless leader has preached so long and hard about. [At least he had his people put something on the internet about it.]
5. The family of macaque monkeys living in the attic.
6. Blood diamonds.
7. Fossil fuels, road rage, sprawl.
8. Consumerism.
9. Some Ingmar Bergman movies just don't make a lick of sense (see The Seventh Seal).
10. Either that or they're interminable (see The Seventh Seal).
11. Salma Hayek runs funny (see Frida). [She does have other attributes (see Frida).]
12. Some people want all the strategically placed cup-holders their sofa has room for. The more, the merrier. Cup holders are actually a selling point.
13. A lot of folks borrow money to pay for furniture.
14. Tornadoes.
15. How ignorant you are about almost everything -- not least, color coordination.
16. Whether God currently exists or is in a constant state of Becoming.
17. Darfur.
18. Which of your organs will fail first, and whether the rest will follow suit shortly thereafter -- or if you'll have to learn to live for an extended period without a piece of you you've always taken for granted.
19. The last time you cut your toenails (see Rosencrantz & Guildenstern are Dead).
20. Six-figure negative net worth.
21. There are still peoples of the world who barter in salt.
22. Billy Idol.
23. The difference between Shia and Sunni Muslims.
24. Why you have so many books and how the [bleep] you're going to pack all of them.
25. Cloning and/or trafficking in humans.
26. The shrinking middle class.
27. The national debt.
28. India vs. Pakistan.
29. North Korea vs. South Korea.
30. Whether or not Peyton Manning can win a big game in Florida.
31. The staggering number of Chinese people in the world.
32. Ann Coulter.
33. Hugo Chavez.
34. Barbaro.
35. The sound of one hand clapping.