The other day I asked for blog topic suggestions.  The very first one was the question, “Will they kill off Jack Bauer in Season 8?”

Who?

Yes, I had to look him up – I had no clue.

Apparently, played by Kiefer Sutherland, Jack Bauer is the protagonist of the TV show “24”.  Which I have never watched.  Why?  Beats me.  Sounds like something I’d enjoy, although I’m not a big TV watcher.  Over the years, I’ve been loyally following such programs as “Lost” (just shoot me now), “Boston Legal” (bring it BACK.  Well, maybe.), “Desperate Housewives” (kind of like a modern, woman-focused “Dallas” with a bit less sex and power and a slower pace), and a few others which, apparently, were not too memorable.

Back to Jack.  From what Wikipedia tells me (yeah, I know, real accurate source, huh?), Jack has a degree in criminology and well, fights crime.  In the form of a fictional (duh) counter terrorist unit.  Naturally, he’s a veteran, and worked for the CIA at one point.  Seems almost a given.  Lots of awards, too.  I mean, if you’re going to get a guy to knock off terrorists and do a dandy job of it, he’d better have a lot of experience, right?  ‘Cause, you know, guys like this just don’t fall off trees.  I wonder how many real people would have all these characteristics?  What are the odds?

In a nutshell, I can’t really answer the question, “will they kill him off” because, well, I haven’t seen the show.  Myself, I’d let him live.  Leaves the door open, so to speak.  Especially since, even though this is the last season, there is talk of a full-length movie in the works.  It’d be hard to make it believable without the main character, yes?

Oh, wait a sec – I haven’t fully addressed my title, have I?

See, the second question posed that day, as pertaining to blog topics, was “where do lost socks go?”

This is even trickier than Jack Bauer, although I’ve often wondered where the socks do end up…well, other than the ones  you see lying in the road.  I’ve researched and polled many individuals and, I believe, the answer lies in the machine itself.

Some washers are hungrier than others.  Mine, for example, makes loud growling noises whenever it starts which progress into sounds like an airplane taking off.  In fact, if you don’t shut the basement door, you could swear it was coming right up the stairs.

Probably in search of food.  Like socks.

I actually don’t often seem to lose socks – then again, I stopped balling up matching pairs together, so maybe I’m not the best person to query on this subject.  It does save me the aggravation of having socks go MIA.

My problem, conversely, is that socks more often appear.  In the washer…in the dryer…on the floor nearby…on the stairs.  Just a random sock, no connection to the load of laundry that particular day, say, when I’m washing towels.  Weird.  I’m always pulling socks out of odd places and returning them to the room of whoever it looks as though it might fit.  Sometimes I mess up.  My husband once put on pink-trimmed socks before he realized they didn’t fit very well….

Having yard guys is not all it’s cracked up to be, especially when they show up while you’re trying to take a nap.  Yeah, I know, it makes me sound like the laziest person on the planet.

I’ve lived in suburbia most of my life, and always where it’s a point of pride to have a nice-looking yard.  Having yard guys would be considered cheating and, besides, only rich people do that anyway.  For almost three years now we’ve been in this rental house and the owner, a doctor down the street, still has the yard guys come four times a year.

Well, supposedly.  Haven’t seen them for six months, at least, and the last few times they did a pretty crappy job.  They’re supposed to clean the gutters, clean up the gunk that falls out, pick up branches, add mulch, fertilize, and spread weed-killer.  They used to mow and trim, too.

Now, none of this stuff is hard and we have no problem doing it ourselves.  We’re good at it too, and much quicker.  And, which is my entire point, we have better timing and we’re a lot more consistent.

Allow me to explain:

When holding the trigger of whichever motorized lawn implement you are using, it is NOT required to start and stop repeatedly; likewise, revving said motor does nothing for gas consumption, timeliness, or the peace of mind of any of the surrounding population.  Especially the human one who has been sick for five days and was snoozing peacefully immediately prior to your arrival.

Besides, since we hadn’t seen them for six months or so, just last week I raked and picked up branches and dug up mulch and sprayed weedkiller.  Glad to know it was really kind of a waste of time.

Another anomaly is that this house is far, far from soundproof and/or sealed.  I swear, it sounded like they were INSIDE the house, and only at the bedroom end too – not sure they did anything at the other end of the house!  And they left the gate open.  Remember the $800 dog incident from a year ago?  Yeah.

So just remember a few things: while it’s nice to be able to say “the yard guys were here”, and it sometimes is nice to have someone else do your work, it’s still kind of cheating.  Most importantly, when I’m tired, I’m cranky.  Guess that’s what it really comes down to!