YOU SAY YES

Stoplights, commercials, and clothes hangers. They're all ruining my life.

The Valley of the Sun has an inordinate numbers of stoplights. I apparently hit them all, all the time. For the almost decade we've been here. I've spent a huge chunk of it waiting for the red light to turn. It seems to have no such problem turning that hated shade when my red car approaches, so you'd think it could unblush and show beautiful, vivid green just as quickly. But as Steve Martin says, "Nooooo."

I express a similar outrage at the inordinate, inane commercials that clutter the tv. I can't channel surf anymore. I thought that a right. But they got together and air them at the same time. So unless I want to see a feminine product ad instead of an AARP ad, then there's really no reason to flip channels. In fact, I need no more remote. I'll watch a show, get up from my comfy chair and change the channel the way we did before remote controls. Yes, there was that time. I won't tell you that I remember when there were no color tv shows, no HD, no surround sound with woofers. But I do.

Ok, so you, too, may share in my antipathy for red lights and commercials, but what's my gripe against hangers? They're not uniform (pun. if you like). By there being so many different types, they get caught, they turn around (at least some have a swivel action so they can all be turned the same way), then snag, then disappear. Then there are the ones with the clips like on potato chip bags that somehow you're supposed to hang your slacks on. (I should have said trousers--ooh there's a word I dislike. Or I could have said garment, but that's another that denotes oldness to me.) Then the little ones for well, the little ones. Those can also disappear, getting lost in the masses. I haven't even addressed the slickness of them that seem greased when you hang a pair of pants on them and they just slide off.

They're all three ruining our country. They are part of a plot to drive us insane or at least to elevate our collective blood pressures to cause us to do stupid things. To wit: yell out loud, show our anger and frustration, and in general shorten our time on the planet. Alleviate one and you've made my day. Two and you've altered my life.

It's too much to hope for three. Besides, then I'd just find something else that bothers me. Like there being few house numbers/business numbers visible from the street. It's maddening to try to find an address anymore