There are things we will never understand in this life but some bother me more than others. Like why, no matter how much I floss, my dental hygienist still finds a full meal hiding somewhere along my gums. Most of the time these things don’t keep me up at night but last night was the exception. While looking in the mirror (something I need to do less of) I noticed a droop in one of my eyelids. I looked closer and sure enough the left lid looked like it had been up for three days. Normally I would eliminate those kinds of things in the bathroom but for some reason it followed me to bed. I tossed and turned for a few minutes trying to get to sleep, gave up, turned on the television and had a “Tylenol PM moment”.

The presidential debate was on! As I watched the two candidates reveal the fact that they didn’t know how to fix anything but their tele-prompters, I realized I’d found the perfect sleep aid. Don't get me wrong, I love a good night's sleep but I wish there were some way to add some spice to these things. Lincoln/Douglas comes to mind. We all want to hear the truth but perhaps we should make them. Send em out there with nothing but original thoughts on their minds. My goodness, don’t have to get prepared to talk to each other about the country’s affairs…we just do it. We don’t need handlers telling us how the world turns and we can usually go with a few original thoughts along the way. “Hey, Barrack Obama and John McCain and we’re not approving anything that’s not something we thought of on our own!” What we’ve got now is a “rebate” not a debate. A little re-hash of every sound bite, negative ad that was produced by “handlers” for the past year. If this is a heavy weight fight let’s see the fighters, not the promoters. I can read, and upon finishing graduate school, I was considered an expert at regurgitation. We want to vote for someone who can think better than me, not put me to sleep when I’m worried about my eyelids drooping. And I don’t like the way they don’t have to look at each other either. Have you ever talked to someone who is standing right next to you and not looked at them? Or had someone talk to you without looking at you? I think they should have to face each other in these things…from about three feet or so.

That’s normal talking distance. We don’t want to invade anyone’s space here but you don’t talk to someone from across a room unless they're an ʺexʺ or their breath stinks. Let’s move them closer together…at least close enough where if one of them has bad breath the other one can offer him a mint. And just once I’d like to hear one of them say, “I’ll have to ask my wifeʺ. You mean to tell us that after all the ballyhoo with regard to these two “fantastic” women, neither candidate has received a ʺword of knowledgeʺ from the lady of the mansion? ʺsorry, I just don't know, nor do I have an opinion on thatʺ. And don’t you get tired of hearing them tell us how wonderful they’ve been as our stalwart protectors for x number of years? This is not normal behavior. If this was a friend you were listening to you’d give them about one second to tell you how wonderful they are then change their “channel”. And if these guys tell me one more time how they’re going to take care of me, the “middle class”, I think I’ll just let em. What is this thing called middle class anyway? I finished in the middle of most of my classes; does that make me eligible for some kind of government assistance? No, unless your eyelids are already drooping, you may as well have a glass of wine and enjoy a good game show. That’s all these guys seem to be playing anyway. Wonder who’s paying for all this entertainment?