Remember the marketing hype of many years ago that went something like this: “By the year 2000, every home will have a videophone.” Yeah, what happened to that? Why doesn’t everyone have a videophone? Do you want to know why everyone has a telephone? Because they all work the same. Sure, at some businesses you have to dial 9 to get an outside line first. And in some areas, local calls are 10 digits instead of 7. But the basic idea is always the same: pick up the phone, dial a number, let it ring, and either the other person answers or they don’t, in which case it usually gets answered by a voice message of some kind.

Let’s face it. When read aloud, number 7 and number 0 take longer than the other numbers. They both have two syllables while all the other numbers have one. This creates inefficiency for people who work with lots of numbers all the time. I propose we shorten “seven” to “sen” and “zero” to “zoh” (or “zo” for short). That way, the people who say “oh” instead of “zero” when reading telephone numbers and addresses will be happy, and sen now gets to be as cool as all the other numbers.

I found out a great way to keep your brown sugar from going bad and hardening up into a rock: seal in an apple slice. I imagine this would work with any moisture-retaining object such as a fresh slice of bread or a ceramic object of some kind that had been soaked in water (see: Brown Sugar Bears). But not only does the apple slice keep the brown sugar moist, it restores previously semifossilized brown sugar to its former pliable glory. Seriously, we had some brown sugar here that must have been hard and dry for at last 6 months.

Our family has always had German Shepherds. There has been one in our house for as long as I remember. I vow to end that tradition in my own house. Not that I don’t like dogs or that there has been one particular incident which drove me to this decision. But it’s all the little things that keep adding up. Maya is 6 or 7 years old now. She’s incredibly whiny, especially when the wind blows over 5 miles per hour. She’s scared of the wind. We have to put her in the basement.