Mamacita says:  I am not, by any stretch of the imagination, exactly a spring chicken these days, but when the time comes that I stop asking questions, they can bury me.  In fact, they should.  What possible use is a person who doesn’t ask questions and seek answers?  Can’t think of a thing.

I’m not presumptuous  enough to believe that all of my questions are of earth-shattering  importance.  I’m just saying that there are many things I don’t know.  Perhaps some of you DO know, and can enlighten me.  Much appreciated.

1.  Why are the Beatles, albeit 50% deceased, still as cool as ever, while so many once-loved , above-ground rockers now seem kind of sad with a tinge of desperation?

2.  How old is “too old” to use “The Logical Song” as a ringtone?

3.  Why do so many of my students think it’s actually OKAY to use those ignorant texting codes in a college essay?  Do they not write essays in high school?   Are those things acceptable at that level?  Because that’s so wrong. . . .

4.  How do people who lie, cheat, steal, betray, and walk out on people who trusted them,  live with themselves?  How can they sleep at night?  Why do we keep electing them?  If they do it to a spouse, child, or friend, they’ll do it to us.

5.  Why don’t people know that recipes that call for egg whites almost always work fine with the whole egg?  The only exceptions I’ve found so far are white cakes.  Even those will still taste great; they just won’t be white.

6.  Why do so many public schools brag about graduating students who scored high on a standardized test?  Why don’t they brag about graduating students who now have the necessary skills to live in the world and make it and themselves better?    Wait, I actually know the answer to this one:  Money, and because they aren’t.

7.  Why do some men pile their dirty clothes BESIDE the hamper, balance the new roll of toilet paper on top of the spindle, and tear open a box of cereal as though it were some kind of fight to the death?

8.  Where are my pie plates and pizza pans?  Family: please check your pantries.

9.  Why didn’t people pay attention in English class?  Don’t they understand that bad grammar and poor spelling make them appear to be, euphemistically speaking, too stupid to piss in a boot? (Gotta love those descriptive southern Indiana sayin’s.)

10.  Why do we allow our schools to give the lowest common denominator almost all of the attention, perks, and money, and pay almost no attention whatsoever to the kids who are average and above, polite, kind, nice to each other,  attentive, hardworking, musical, artistic, creative, who love to learn and would love to be able to go forward, above and beyond what the standardized curriculum allows them to?  Why?  How did we come down to this?  Shouldn’t it be the other way around?  I think it should be.

I might have included a few of my pet themes here, and I may have saved my biggest hobby-horse for last.

Bonus points if you know what “hobby-horse,” in this particular context, means.