Has the world turned black and white or is it me? I rarely complain in print. I save my griping and moaning for my small (and strangely dwindling) circle of friends. In fact, I gripe and they moan.

“You know what ticks me off?” I said the other day.

“Oh no, what?” they said in unison. One of them slipped away to the bar. He thought I didn’t notice.

“How headlines on the internet news services pose their latest alarm in the form of a question.”

“Groan.”

“It’s like the whole world has gone into Final Jeopardy. We know all the answers, it’s the questions that we have to figure out. I am waiting for a headline that reads, “World To End Friday – Is Friday The Best Day?” I guess you are supposed to blog your opinion. Have you read some of the opinions? Who has time for reading playground level sarcasm spiced with scatologically tainted menacing? If I wanted that, I would just tell people how I vote.

“The other day I read a Pearl Harbor sized e-headline that went, ‘Is Jen Single Again?’ Well, duh! That’s why I go to the darned internet to find out if Jen is single again. How would I know unless I was the one who dumped her? Or, how about ‘Congress Gives 600 Billion to AIG – Will This Work?’ How would I know? I just moused up the internet to find out if Jen was single again for a few minutes so I could get on Facebook and tell her that Brad really isn’t …”

“You go on Facebook?” said the beloved. Her ears perked up so violently it made bumps in her new hairdo.

“Ah … I may have. Is that a problem?”

“Who is Wanda Meaka?”

“I … ah … someone I knew once a long time ago. Why do you ask?”

“You got an email saying she had written on your wall. What does that mean?”

“Ah … in Facebook …. You know what Twitter is?”

“Another old girl friend from your hippie days?”

“No. I told you. That one’s name was Glitter Starshine. She had it legally changed from Bernise Katzenschlitter. Wouldn’t you?”

“Who is Wanda Meaka, and what is she writing on your wall? For a good time call Wanda?”

“Er, no, not exactly. She is on her fifth husband, well not on, exactly, I guess he left with the hot tub to live with someone he met in a chat room, so she was just innocently looking up old friends from college. Is that so terrible?”

“Were you two …?”

“What are you suggesting?”

“I’m not suggesting anything! I’m asking pointblank. Were you?”

“Not really. But, it was the sixties. Wasn’t everybody?”

“I’m about ready to blog you one upside the head. Is that what you want?”

“Do you even know what blog means?”

“Do you want to find out?”

“Can we change the subject?”

“We have dance class tomorrow night. Are you going to wear some nice pants?”

“Groan. Tomorrow?”

“Last week was the rumba, this week is the meringue. Don’t you want to learn the double turn? Haven’t you any sense of romance?”

“I was pretty romantic when I had hair. Whoever heard of a romantic bald guy?”

“Do you want me to rent the King and I again?”

“Good lord, no! Do you want me to wear my Hammer Time gold harem pants to dance class?”

“Well, do I have to rent Towering Inferno?”

“Bruce Willis?”

“He’s bald isn’t he?”

“Yes, but he has a wig. You want me to get a wig?”

“It might get you to shut up about your hair. Do you want to try one?”

“I’d rather go to dance class. When do we learn the part where you wear a red dress cut down to you know, and you twitch your butt to make the fringe fly and then I throw you between my legs?”

“In your dreams. Can you even do the rumba without saying ‘quick, quick slow’ aloud and looking at your feet?”

“That bothers you?”

“Do you see Yul Brenner counting his steps?”

“Do you see his leading lady actually trying to lead?”

“What are you saying?”

“Maybe I should lead?”

“This is the 21st Century. Women lead. Is that a problem for you, buster?”

“What would you say if I said yes?”

“Suck it up?”

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