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               I turn 83 tomorrow but still have more questions than answers. Here are some of them:

--How did it figure that Cox told me my bill would go up if I dropped one of my two telephone “land lines”?  It was something about “bundling” but I didn’t stick around for the whole explanation.

               --When the traffic light turns green and the guy in front of you doesn’t move, isn’t there about a 90% chance he’s texting?

               --What’s the chance there will be a computer snafu when you try to order something online, and that it won’t be correctable? 20%? 30%? 50%?

               --Shouldn’t the college-basketball cliché “one-and-done” be changed to “none and done”? Most jocks who use it drop out during second semester and don’t complete a year of schooling.

               --Why does unplugging and replugging your computer eliminate bugs?  Other appliances don’t respond to that.

               --Were “smart phones” designed to make users (some, anyway) feel dumb?

               --COVID-19 thought: Parkinson’s Law has it that work expands to fill the time allotted to it, but doesn’t that also apply to idleness?

               -- Why was it that, for the same home-repair job, we got bids of $8,600, $22,400 and $27,000?

               -- Why was I not surprised that the same politicians who rolled back anti­-pollution laws were the quickest to advocate reopening businesses in the face of the virus? Human sacrifice didn’t end with the Aztecs.

               --Is there any modern plague more difficult to shake than identity theft (besides the virus, of course)? Once the scammers have even a little bit of your data they never let go.               

               --Doesn’t it give you a warm feeling when a company calls its employees “team members” or “associates”?

               --How do our appliances know to wait until 5 p.m. on a Friday before breaking down?

               --Doesn’t high-definition television highlight how many people have really bad skin?

               --Aren’t all social movements demanding “justice” doomed to failure? Human disputes rarely work out to the complete satisfaction of anyone.

               --Does anything taste better after dinner than a Frango mint?

               --Why are backyard seed receptacles called “bird feeders” instead of “squirrel feeders”?

               --Did you know you can take a comfortably warm shower around Phoenix in the summer without turning on the hot water?

               --Is there a bigger bargain than the $29 I paid for a year’s online subscription to the Washington Post? Or was it $39? Either way.

               --Why do people bother to wear face masks if they walk around with their noses sticking out?

               --Is there anything tastier than Dungeness crab? Besides stone crab, I mean.

               --What have things come to when a husband (me) can tell his wife (Susie) “cute mask”?

               --I know you hate to admit it, but aren’t some of those Progressive Insurance ads clever?

               --Isn’t one of the (few) good things about the covid siege that people usually are at home when you phone them?

               --Won’t a return to “normal” depend as much on finding effective treatments for severe virus-caused illnesses as on the vaccines?  Continuing mutations will make immunity illusory, just like with the “regular” flu.

 --Is there a recorded-phone-message menu that doesn’t announce it recently has changed?

               --When did “reticent” become a synonym for “reluctant”?

               --Doesn’t accenting the first syllable instead of the second in the word “insurance” constitute a setback for the language?

               -- How can anyone believe there was guiding intelligence behind the mob that vandalized the Capitol? Most of those bozos weren’t smart enough to cover their faces.

               --Has there ever been a better made-for-TV miniseries than “Lonesome Dove,” which first was aired 31 years ago?

               --Why is it that I talk to my kids more than ever these days but still miss them more?

               Just askin’.