Greg and I were watching Oprah today (I had the day off, and Greg worked at home), and she had on a medical expert giving all sorts of advice to stay healthy. One of the topics they covered was how often people should have sex. Apparently a study found that if people have sex at least 200 times a year, their life-spans will increase by six years. The reactions of the women in the audience versus the men in the audience were, as you can guess, quite different.

Now Greg is walking around saying that I’m “killing him,” and that he’s going to die young because of me. And I say that maintaining that level of activity will require more than six year’s worth of time, so it’s a wash. And wouldn’t it be just as advantageous to go for a walk or eat some vegetables? Greg is going to love this post.

I know most of you can’t see what your children do during recess, but I can. They are running in mad circles, screaming at the top of their lungs. But you already knew that. What you might not have known is that they do all of this after kicking off their shoes. That’s right. Running over the grass in their white — no, make that brown — socks.

I’m in the third week of the new job, and things are going well. In fact, for me, they are going a little too well. As Greg will attest, I tend to look for the negative in everything, especially in a job. I haven’t been able to see much downside with this new job. Sure, the night hours are a little strange, but I revel in the freedom I have to sleep until 10 a.m. When I wake up, the neighborhood is quiet because rush hour is over, but the birds are still chirping, and the sun greets me from high in the sky. I much prefer 10 a.m. to 6 a.m. But I’m getting off track here…

Last night, I thought I had finally found a reason to be angry. As we geared up for the rush before deadline, I knew I had to have some sugar — M&Ms to be exact. (Yes, Greg, I already broke down on the healthy eating.) The vending machine refused to take my dollar, so I put the bill into the convenient change machine to get quarters. The machine spit out just one quarter. Are you kidding me? Not only had the machine stolen 75 cents from me, but now I didn’t have enough money to get my M&Ms.

The vending machine company provides envelopes that you can fill out in case your money gets stolen, so I grabbed an envelope and marched back to my desk. Here was a reason to be mad! Finally I had found the flaw in this new job — faulty vending machines. I announced to my co-workers that they should not use the change machine because it was out of quarters. I began digging for change in my purse, now even more desperate to get the M&Ms. I found two dimes, a few nickels. I counted my change again. Did I have enough?

As I grasped the quarter, I felt a notch in its side. I looked down. What was this? It looked like some sort of fake quarter, maybe a token. No, it was a silver dollar.

I told my co-worker that the machine had given me a silver dollar. I was disappointed that I couldn’t use it in the vending machine, but amazed that the machine had given me a shiny, beautiful coin in place of my scuzzy dollar bill. Then my co-worker told me that the vending machine would take a silver dollar. Joy!

I walked breezily back to the vending machine, noting along the way that the coin had been made in 1980, my birth year. I tried to be a pessimist, but it’s difficult when even the vending machines like me.