WHY IS IT THAT . . .
No matter how much health insurance you have, you always get a bill from a doctor following a visit that reflects no insurance? You calmly write a note, or you cheerfully call the doctor's office on the phone and explain that your insurance is supposed to cover all or part of the bill, and the bookkeeper says, "Fine."Then a little later you get a more insistent bill labeled OVERDUE. The problem is that some people don't realize this is a game regularly played in the medical world, and so they panic and pay the bill. Then the insurance pays the bill - in due time, of course. Sometimes the very first bill you get says it is overdue. Isn't there some way to correct this ridiculous but persistent problem?
- No one following the Quayle-Murphy Brown controversy realizes the REAL reason the vice president chose to slam one of television's most popular shows? Because there are so many Quayle jokes on Murphy Brown.
- We don't distrust the airlines more than we do when three of them are in bankruptcy and all of them are constantly changing their prices and their price structures? Instead, we encourage them by constantly calling to find out the latest price change. And if you buy a ticket at the old price and try to get the new price, they won't give you the time of day.
- No matter how careful you are with your car, no matter how many times you gear down when descending a mountain road, no matter how slowly you approach an intersection - coasting, without stepping on the pedal until the last possible minute - your brakes still need replacing after only 26,000 miles?
- People who wear hearing aids are so self-conscious about them that they often don't wear them in public? Aren't hearing aids just the same as wearing glasses?
- Every summer, just when everyone wants to travel on the highways, the highway department promptly digs most of them up? My neighborhood has become a sea of cones, and downtown Salt Lake City is getting that way fast.
- When Johnny Carson was still going strong there were 40 other talk shows - and now that he's gone there are 60 - and 20 more in the planning stage?
- Now that Johnny's gone, the favorite game among critics is to analyze Leno's every joke and every guest and compare them unfavorably to Carson's? I don't remember Carson ever being analyzed so closely.
- The Food and Drug Administration thinks it's a good idea to insert chicken genes in potatoes and insect genes in tomatoes? I'm old-fashioned, I guess - I prefer each one with its own genes. And if scientists are doing that, shouldn't they have to warn us?
- Sonny Bono decided to run for the U.S. Senate in California when he couldn't even use up a minute of debate time on TV? He forgot what it's like to speak without a script - and without Cher at his side.
- It's now considered high fashion for male models to shave their chests and legs but hope everyone just thinks it's natural? What's the deal? Did I come into the middle of a movie here?
- So many people are completely caught up in the earn-and-spend mentality that they rarely take the time to reflect and have some fun?
- Whenever you call practically any business on the phone, you have to listen to radio music of their choice while you wait for the correct voice to come over the wire? Shouldn't they at least ask you which station you prefer before they leave you for five minutes?
- No one else is as good at one liners as Ross Perot? My favorite: "The total national debt was only
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