Why is it that . . . ?

. . . Sleeping is one of the most important pleasures of life, and yet you only enjoy it for an instant when you first lie down? You sleep through the rest of it, and when you become conscious enough to remember how enjoyable it is, it's time to get up!. . . More junior and senior high schools don't adopt the positively progressive "no cut" policy of Plainview Middle School in Plainview, Ill.? Any student there who wants to be a member of the basketball team, the cheerleading squad, the band, the a cappella choir - or any other school organization - can do it! No one is ever cut! It makes for huge basketball teams, bands, cheerleading squads and a cappella choirs, but no student leaves school with a major disappointment burned into his or her psyche.

. . . People in Utah don't adopt peanut butter and marshmallow sandwiches? I learned this little trick in New England, and it tastes better than peanut butter and jelly or peanut butter and honey. Just buy a bottle of marshmallow fluff, used in Utah as ice cream topping, and slap it on your bread.

. . . Women like Jane Fonda, and now Cher, who have had eye lifts, face lifts, chin lifts and who knows what else, are showing us how terrific you can look if you follow the regimen on their exercise videos?

. . . It took so long for the "politically correct" movement to reach Utah? Because (some people would say) we already realized which political party is correct . . . .

. . . All Christmas parties for every group to which you belong are all scheduled on the same weekend, forcing you to make a devastating and sometimes offensive choice? Why not schedule some of them between Christmas and New Year's?

. . . Everyone is saying how amazing it is that Salt Lake City finally has its first woman mayor when Sydney Fonnesbeck was in fact the city's first woman mayor - for about 40 minutes during the transition from Ted Wilson to Palmer DePaulis?

. . . We didn't think earlier of imposing a night-time curfew on males as a method of reducing the incidence of sexual assault? And those males who must travel during curfew must be accompanied by two women "in order to demonstrate that they are not threatening." Kudos to the activist women students at Brigham Young University. Could catch on elsewhere.

. . . All parts of the country don't receive the onset of irritating, wintry weather at the same time so that we don't have to feel cheated that the temperature is 70 degrees and the leaves are still on the trees somewhere else?

. . . Everyone who has a cold or the flu thinks the brave and dedicated thing to do is to go to work and give the cold or flu to everyone else?

. . . We all complain that the culture starts preparing for the Christmas season too early, yet once it starts the days go by so fast that we can't possibly get everything done before the day actually arrives?

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. . . If your mother gives you something for Christmas you always feel a compulsion to return it whether you like it or not?

. . . We all send Christmas cards with one of two extreme approaches - we either sign our names and say nothing else, thus leaving the receiver frustrated and seriously lacking in information - OR we send one of those incredibly irritating, obnoxious photocopied Christmas letters in which we brag endlessly about our families?

. . . Most people don't realize that they can be spared an entire evening of aimless wandering in the snow, arguing with family members about which tree to buy, followed by hauling it home with the trunk open and spreading needles throughout the house - if they just run down to Modern Display and get a great fake one?

. . . The University of Utah doesn't realize that it's impossible to teach anything in 10 weeks, and that it's never too late to switch from a quarter to a semester system?

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