Have people really lost the ability to think, and take some responsibility for themselves, or do our various levels of government just think we have?  Or do lawyers being able to advertise drive the way we conduct our lives now, so new rules need to be created for every situation? Does everybody want to sue somebody for something they should have taken care of themselves in some way? Now why is that?

I needed a permit to build a wall with some electric in my own house.  My contractor is a good and ethical, talented man and the inspection passed with  no problem.  But I still don’t like the fact that we had to have it, since it is my house.  If I was married to such a contractor, he would also need a permit to build a wall in his own house. 

Now I have heard a few more things that really irked me in the last couple days.  One municipality near here is considering making it against a  law to leave your car unlocked, anywhere, ever.  Sure, people steal cars, no, they shouldn’t steal cars, but do I have to change my life to protect myself from them?  I’ve heard that the electronics in modern cars make it very difficult for even a talented thief to hot wire them.  So, if the guy is THAT talented in his criminal ways that he can find a way to hot wire my car, can’t he use a glass cutter or break a window to get in? If the car is valuable enough to steal, is it valuable enough to replace a window in it before the crook resells it?

Do I keep my diamonds and rubies in there for him to walk away with?  Nooo, cos I don’t have any diamonds and rubies!  And if you have some, why would you keep them in your car?  If you have some great electronics in your car, you probably have the sense to lock it without a law, cos your insurance would cover you if it’s locked.  But I don’t have any fancy electronics either, so why do I need a law to make me lock mine?

A friend told me that a boy in school was sent to the principal’s office and the parents called……cos the kid brought a gun to school!  What the kid brough was a plastic toy soldier, who was holding a gun.  A plastic, molded, toy soldier, 3″ tall. 

That little boy couldn’t  have pulled off a mass shooting with that gun.  I’m not one to encourage kids to be taught to act in violent ways, but this was a little boy with toy soldiers.  Plastic soldiers, no danger, no real gun or reasonable representation of one.

There’s an old situation that still bugs me every year.  I live on a county line, literally.  My side of the street is one county.  Across the street is another county.  We all breathe the same air here, and when we drive our cars, the same things come out of the tail pipes, no matter which side of the street you’re driving on. 

But my county requires emission tests as part of our annual inspection.  $50, every year. Across the street, that county doesn’t require them.  So my inspection costs $70, counting the sticker and labor.  Theirs costs $20.  The air crosses the county line………..

I’ve been doing laundry for years, quite successfully, and have never once stuck my hands down into the agitator while it as still spinning.  Only a stupid adult, or possibly a child, would do that.  But where is mom when the child is climbing into a moving washing machine?  Oh, now we need a law! 

So, when I bought a new washer several years ago, it came equipped with a safety feature!  It has a locking mechanism that won’t let me open the lid till 2 minutes after the spinning has stopped.  2 minutes isn’t long, but the principle of the item bothered me, so I figured out how to remove that safety mechanism. I dismantled it!

Oh, but the law makers for safety features are ahead of us dismantlers! The machine would NOT operate without it, I had to put it back in.  Now it irritates me on principle every time I do laundry.

I’m starting to think like Andy Rooney from one tv show.  He states some ridiculous facts, and then asks, Now, Why Is That? Maybe I should run for public office since so many things in our society today seem to strike me as immensely unfair, unreasonable and just ridiculous.