Dear Diary:

What a day! I spent hours writing a column about North Korean leader Kim Jong-un only to have my wife, Lori, tell me I couldn’t send it to the paper.   She said the cyber-reprisals would threaten the Albion News’ media empire. I told her I didn’t care – I couldn’t think of anything else to write about. But she reminded me that if the News gets hacked, all the snarky emails I’ve sent to them complaining about Angelina Jolie’s attitude would be made public. So I had to write a whole new column about the shelf life of mangos instead. I’ll email it to the News as soon as I finish writing this…

Earlier today Lori suggested I make my New Year’s resolutions. My first reaction was ‘why do I need to make resolutions – I don’t need improving.’ But after 30 years of marriage I know that Lori wouldn’t have brought it up if she didn’t think I need to improve something or other. The question is, what? Because she’s a woman, she’ll never just come out and tell me. It’s up to me to guess, and I’ll be in trouble for the rest of the year if I don’t get it right.

So what could be bugging her about me? I’ve gotten a lot better about not using my necktie as a napkin. Remember how she used to fuss about that? Said I must have grown up in a barn. And she’s finally got me changing my underwear and socks at semi-regular intervals so hopefully that issue’s been put to rest.

She has been nagging me to change the oil in our van, but driving it until there’s no oil left saves the trouble of draining it out. Maybe it’s the Christmas tree – she’s been wanting me to get rid of that for years now, but keeping it saves both the cost of a new tree each year and the trouble of decorating it. True, it isn’t green anymore and there aren’t many needles left, but she should be used to that by now.

I hope this isn’t about my efforts to toilet train the cats. I know that if I just keep at it, sooner or later they’ll figure it out – if they can drink from the toilet they can do other things too. But Lori does keep complaining about it. She seems to think I ought to give in and let them use their litter box again.

Diary, you know that I love Lori dearly, but she can be so frustrating. I don’t know how men and women manage to live together. Every time I try to explain all the ways she’s wrong she gets mad at me. Anymore I don’t say much of anything besides “Yes, dear, anything you say, dear.” If I didn’t have this diary to write my true thoughts in, I don’t know what I’d do. I just have to make sure no one ever finds it – Lori just doesn’t appreciate my astute observations about her lapses and failings.

Oh geez – look at the time! I’d better quick hit “send” so people will know how to properly judge a mango —