Sometimes I am amazed at what people get ratcheted up about. This week it’s not the economy or the political cycle that has feminists angry, it’s that Muppet character Kermit the frog has a new girlfriend. Oh, and top it all off, she’s young and thin. In typical fashion, social media Twitter followers expressed outrage and dismay that Kermit ditched his feminist full figured Miss Piggy for a thinner younger model. How is it that the world is unraveling faster than a one-dollar sweater yet a fictitious frog dating a pig gets people upset?

Each week I sit down to pen my analysis on life, sometimes it’s get harder and harder to find the humor. The joke seems to be on the rest of us. Some years ago 23-year-old Michael Gentner of Akron, Ohio lost his life after swallowing a five-inch-long live fish on a dare. When he began to choke on it, his friends stopped laughing and phoned an ambulance. They told the EMT’s their friend had ‘eaten some fish’. Paramedics were surprised to find the fish’s tail still flapping in his mouth. The Deputy Police Chief later stated he wouldn’t charge Gentner’s three friends. “I don’t know what you’d charge them on. If I dare you to jump off a bridge and you do it, and you’re 23 years of age, you’re stupid,” he told reporters.

At a nursing home in Florida not long ago a resident group was discussing ailments. “My arms are so weak I can hardly lift this cup of coffee,” one said.

“Yes I know, my cataracts are so bad I can’t even see my coffee,” replied another.

“I can’t turn my head because of the arthritis in my neck,” said a third. At which several others nodded weakly.

“My blood pressure pills make me dizzy,” another one went on. “I guess that’s the price we pay for getting old,” winced an old man. “It sure beats the alternative.”

“Well, it’s not that bad,” said one woman cheerfully. “Thank goodness we can all still drive!”

Do you think our priorities are just a bit out of place today? Are we so thankful to be in life’s drivers seat that we don’t see the problems all around us and ahead of us? Maybe like the man who choked on a fish, the problem is us.