Tell me. Do you sometimes find yourself yearning back to the days when toddlers were real toddlers, when station wagons came in wood paneling, and when it was possible to buy a gallon of milk and have change left over from a five dollar bill?

I think I'm either loopy from the lack of sleep or having a serious nostalgia moment over here. Bear with me, if you will. No, not that sort of bear. The other sort, the sort that enables relationships to survive the end of the rose-tinted glasses. So I was at the store the other day and saw practically nothing in the entire child department that I would want on my daughter's body. Or near my daughter's body. I sent my Boy out to Target with all sorts of warnings- "don't let her come home looking like a hooker" I wanted to say. I've been telling him all about these things, how the hems are too short and the logos are just on the tamer side of sleazy, and how no 18month old child is "sexy thang". "Juicy", I'll give you. Especially the morning following a fruit binge. Somehow I think my interpretion of that slogan is different than the marketer's intent.

What is it with the fashion-marketing-sales people who order this crap up for the stores and try to foist it off on us? What is it that makes people wear spandex in ways in which is was never intended to be worn?

And the second half of my recent chagrin is that I stopped at a quick-e-mart on the way home the other night for some milk. Now, forgive me if I'm wrong, but I had sort of assumed that the standard gallon of milk price was pretty much fixed. It's one of those pantry staples, not subject to wild fluctuations like the prices per pound of beef and beer. I expect to pay more than the grocery store price when I shop at a quick-e-mart (no, I'm not naming the store). I do not expect to pay $4.99 for a gallon of milk that is sold next door in the grocery (when they're open for business) for $3.55. Is that not ridiculous?

We accuse Big Oil of price gouging. I guess it's not just gas that they're pushing prices up on. It's everything they can get their grubby little mitts on.