Achoo to you, too

Whenever I'm around people with colds, I take extraordinary preventive measures. I wash my hands dozens of times a day, avoid touching my eyes and nose,  and even use a paper towel to  turn doorknobs. The result is that I catch the cold. There are, of course, hundreds of conditions worse than a cold, but when you have one, you really don't believe that.

*

Most apologies are less than sincere. (That was said by a geezer professor in my geezer class. Like a good newsman, I attribute everything.)

*

After decades of taste tests, I have concluded that pink and white Good and Plentys taste exactly the same.

*

Many a truth is sung. Take these lyrics from "The Winning Side" by Robbie O"Connell: "Ah, but justice is a fickle thing./One law for the common man, another for the king. ... /And it's all justified when you're on the winning side."

*

Here's a puzzlement that may take you all weekend to figure out: Come up with 10 combinations of coins that add up to 23 cents. Answer Monday. 

Now I lay me down to sleep

While on a cruise a month ago, I discovered the delights of a duvet.  With that kind of bed covering, I found, I would no longer wake up with blankets and sheets wrapped around my neck after a night of unconscious thrashing. So, once home, I went to buy a duvet and found it wasn't all that easy. All I could find for sale were "duvet covers." After a lot of research, I learned that the inside of a duvet is called a comforter, which, after a series of contortions on the owner's part, will fit into the duvet cover. I wonder why the nomenclature is so strange. And if you think this is boring, a former colleague once wrote a 2,000-word article on a similar subject. (Just joking, Tim.)

*

Perhaps feeling newly important because she was mentioned in The Boring File, Chloe the Cat broke down my bedroom door at 6 this morning and bounded into my bed, pushing her wet nose against my face. I patted her in the area where her brains should be.

*

Answer to Saturday's puzzlement:  Minus-40 Celsius equals minus-40 Fahrenheit. (Heh.)

*

I once ran six steps in the Boston Marathon.  Just wanted to get across the street.

*

My wife has a cold and insists on using only  green-colored NyQuil. No matter how many times I point out that the ingredients in the generic drugstore version are exactly the same, she says that only the brand name works. Even stranger, she will not use cherry flavored NyQuil. Apparently she feels that unless taking a spoonful forces you to say, "AAAARGH, YUCKKKK,  that stuff tastes awful," it will not work.

*

Memo to Leo Tolstoy: All families are dysfunctional.