None of us has all the answers

Questions seem to pile up around my desk on a September afternoon like leaves that will soon be piling up on the lawn.
Questions like:
— Do Colts fans — frustrated the past few years — get any sympathy at all from fans of the Cleveland Browns, the Detroit Lions, or — for that matter — the Chicago Bears? Do they deserve any, or should they just suffer in silence?
— Isn’t refusal to learn a new software an undeniable indicator of getting old?
— Have you ever looked through the display cases at Jay County Historical Society’s museum and seen an item from your childhood or high school days? Doesn’t it feel odd to be a museum piece?
— Will this really be the Cubs’ year? Or is that simply asking too much?
— Is it really as much fun to operate a power-nailer as they make it look on HGTV? Instead of a serious tool with dangerous potential, the producers make it look like a cool toy to play with. How stupid is that?
— When they ask you at the post office if the package you’re mailing contains anything liquid, hazardous, etc., does anyone ever answer, “You bet”? What would happen if that was your response?
— What do you count when you’re having trouble getting to sleep — or getting back to sleep? I’ve worked my way through a number of options over the years. I’ve tried to count all the cars that we’ve owned. I’ve counted states visited. And one cold night in Afghanistan a few years ago, with nearly every piece of clothing in my suitcase piled on top of my blanket while I tried to get warm, I counted every interpreter or translator I’d ever relied on. Does anyone count sheep anymore except in cartoons or TV commercials?
— Do recycling bins get heavier when the holiday catalogs start arriving?
— Is there anyone under the age of 50 who knows how to diagram a sentence? And when a teacher like Grace Stansbury put you through that drill in junior high school, didn’t you get a better understanding of the way the English language works?
— Why are “listicles,” those inane and irritating things on websites that over-promise and under-deliver — 27 movie stars who look like their pets, the top 12 ways to cheat on the bar exam, 16 hot ways to spice up your breakfast — still with us? What are the top 10 reasons those still earn clicks?
— Isn’t it oddly satisfying when the amount of coffee in the cupboard is directly in sync with the number of remaining coffee filters?
— Do biology students still dissect frogs and fetal pigs? Does the classroom still stink of formaldehyde?
— Which makes for a better long distance conversation: Facetime or Skype?
— When was the last time you wrote a letter? Not an email. A letter. Wouldn’t it be a good idea to try it again?
— Aren’t you glad that with questions like these, none of us has all the answers?