It had been a good day, at least up until supper.

No, no, the supper wasn’t bad. Maureen made fish and shrimp tacos. They were tasty with a nice glass of white wine.

The problem was i turned on the television. You see, we began pulling out the TV trays for the evening meal when the Padres play baseball, and it has become somewhat of a tradition to eat supper on the television trays and watch something of interest.

Now, i shun television news for the most part, but i do watch the local weather. And since there were no sports events on that interested me. i decided to watch the local news.

And that is when i began to wonder about a bunch of things. Like why would i even consider breaking my vow to not watch television news.

The first news item was about the weather. As predicted, a storm front passed through in the early afternoon bringing much needed rain to the area. Rain is predicted for the next two days. There was a five or six minute segment about the rain, the forecast, and how alarmed the citizens of San Diego County were, in panic in fact, over all of this torrential rain. How much? Well, down here in the Southwest corner of the Southwest corner, we got just a wee bit more than it takes to wet the streets. There were some places in the highlands north and east of us that got as much as two inches. Panic, total panic. Most of the non-weather part of the segment was at an auto parts store where folks were frantically buying windshield wipers. Then they had this guy filling up sand bags and putting them in his truck…for two inches of rain. They interviewed a woman who was afraid her house would drown…or something like that.

Now i spent the most of this segment laughing.

Then came the big news. Some student and mother of another student have sent requests to the California State University System demanding bunk beds be removed from the dorms at San Diego State University. The station kept interviewing students who were very concerned about safety. You see, a student had gone to a fraternity party a couple of weeks ago, got drunk, went back to his dorm room, climbed into his bed, the top bunk, and fell out, hitting his head and killing himself. First, the university put all of the fraternities on suspension to investigate possible hazing. That seems to have been forgotten. The big deal now is how bunk beds are unsafe, apparently because drunks can fall out of them — i instantly was reminded of a daily entry in my old “Murphy’s Law” desk calendar: “Paul’s Law: You Can’t Fall Off the Floor” — even though all of the bunk beds at SDSU have been certified by the state fire department and are inspected twice a year.

Then, the next item shifted to my neck of the woods. There has been about a three-month fight over the Chula Vista Library. Someone, i don’t know who, thought it would be a good idea once a week to have drag queens read children’s stories to children at the main library. Now, it might surprise you, but there have been protests. And the protests have produced anti-protest protests. And the city, concerned about public safety, called out the city police for security at the protests and anti-protests in front of the library (i’m guessing they didn’t measure up to library quietness). Ah, then the police billed the city for $40,000 for security services. Some folks think the protestors and anti-protestors should have to pay the bill. Others think…oh hell, i don’t know what any of them think…if they do.

And i am still in amazement those were the three lead stories in the 6:00 News.

Before they went to the next segment, i changed the channel to watch the end of “Snowy River.”

Good choice.