Life Mysteries

On one of the last days of our vacation, I was lying in bed in our rented front door ajar and no lock house, listening to the dogs barking up a storm. Except there was no storm of course and that expression has never made sense to me. But it reminded me of Hound of the Baskervilles and I was trying to remember if anyone got murdered there, because I didn’t want to start panicking unnecessarily.

“I can’t believe how much those dogs are barking tonight,” I told my husband, trying not to show fear.

“What dogs?” he asked, masking his fear even better.

“You know, the ones barking,” I pointed to the window.

“Those aren’t dogs,” he said. “Those are geese quacking.”
“Geese? Quacking?” That seemed less ominous.
“Or honking.”
”Honking? Is that what geese do?”
“How the hell am I supposed to know what geese do? I’m from Newark.”

Ok, I have no idea what being from Newark has to do with knowing the appropriate sounds that geese make, but whatever. It’s one of life’s mysteries. And here’s another that I thought of that night, now that I felt somewhat assured that I wouldn’t be murdered in my sleep.

How come people don’t fall out of their beds more often? I don’t mean the King-size bed sleepers, but people with twin beds? People move around in their sleep, shouldn’t we be rolling off our beds more often? Because if more people would plummet off their beds, I could finally work on developing my bed seatbelt idea that would keep us strapped in, like a straightjacket, sort of, but it would come in different colors. Maybe even seductive leopard print. In satin.

And the other life mystery I wonder about is what happened to True Romance magazine. In the 80s I saw it on newspaper stores all the time, but now, never. Yes, it took me two decades to notice, but now I’m wondering.

Because I can’t imagine what could be more fun than being strapped in bed, listening to geese honking and reading “True Romance”. Except being murdered in your sleep, of course.