I have a headache from trying to figure out the answer to what I have concluded to be an unsolvable question. Why do people have to make life more difficult, confusing and involved than is necessary?
You may be wondering what exactly I am referring to. Luckily for you I'm going to use sense, logic and a straightforward approach to explain my frustration. Here are three examples in the past week alone that have caused me to grab the Tylenol bottle and wonder what is wrong with people.
1. Olympic Figure Skating
Can you figure out the new scoring system? I can't, and apparently neither can the announcers or athletes. There's a delay. No, not because the games are in Torino, Italy, but because everyone needs a few seconds to figure out what the score means.
After a scoring scandal at the last winter Olympics, a new system was implemented in 2004. Twelve anonymous judges score a program on a 10-point scale. A computer randomly picks nine of those scores to count. The highest and lowest scores in each of the five categories are dropped. Add that all up, hit total and show the final number.
I miss being little. I would watch the routines and then perform my own version in the living room, where triple axles were equivalent to leaps and I always won the gold. Next I would see each score and boo the countries that gave my favorite skaters low points and cheer the high ones. Now, I'm too old to win gold and too bored with the new system. My suggestions: keep judges anonymous, show individual scores and count all twelve scores before cutting the highest and lowest.
2. McDonald's French Fries
This situation is perplexing. Apparently, the delicious, greasy fries contain wheat and dairy products; however, the company does not list these ingredients in the nutritional content.
First off, why do fries have wheat or dairy in them? Cut the potato. Put into boiling oil. Let cook. Remove. And add artery clogging amounts of salt. Sounds like a delicious recipe. Maybe I should send it to McDonald's headquarters.
Second, why lie about it? Look, food allergies seem to be a growing phenomenon. McDonald's already acknowledges that the fries have trans fat, so why not release all the information? Someone at the company had to know that the truth would eventually come out. My suggestion: don't eat McDonald's. Not just because it's unhealthy, but because now you have to wonder what exactly your eating.
3. The media
I had at least three days of déjà vu experiences last week. Every time I checked Google news the top story was the same one about Vice President Dick Cheney's shooting accident. Why does the media have to blow some news story out of proportion? Give us the information, necessary updates, some analysis if needed and then move on. Please.
There's no need to make situations like these complicated — people just need to use common sense.
