Alas, I don't have the tanning gene

I go straight from ghostly pale to boiled lobster. John, on the other hand, is getting a very nice tan from being out in the sun so much.

John and Hanna have a Care Bears video, and one of the stories is about a soap box derby and some mean boys who try to sabotage their girl competitors. They stretch a rope across the road and pour oil on the road. The kids like that one, and lately John likes walking around the house with a jump rope, and always wants me to hold the other end so we can stretch it across the road. And, he also likes to pretend to pour oil on the road.

Lessee, how about a pet peeve. It irks me when businesses use the phrase "more than" to describe how many products they have, as in "we have more than 14 varieties of pickled herring." What is the point of saying something like "more than 14"? Do they have 15? If so, is it really so terrible to just say "we have 15 varieties of pickled herring?" Do they have 87 varieties? 87 is more than 14. Argh. Is there something so special about a number like 14, that in using it as a baseline, we the lumpen consumerate automatically think that since there is more than that arbitary number, this must be a company worthy of our hard-earned dollars?