My potentially inflammatory statement of the year

Look. There's something I've had on my mind for quite some time, now. I've sat on it, because I'm afraid that it may be offensive to some of my friends. But I have to say it.

Crew cabs on pickup trucks look stupid.

There. I've said it.

Let me go further. If you don't work in construction or on a farm, pickup trucks generally look stupid, period. If there isn't stuff in the bed of your truck -- and an amount, or type, of stuff that you couldn't fit in a station wagon -- for more than half of the times you drive it, your pickup truck probably looks stupid. Okay, if you're towing stuff for more than half the times you're driving it, I'll count that, too.

But. Back to crew cabs. And, for that matter, compact pickup trucks. Anything with a short bed. They look dumb. They ARE dumb. The point of a long cab bed is that it carries a sheet of plywood with the tailgate up. That's why plywood is the size it is -- to fit in a pickup bed. You have anything shorter, and you're getting rid of the reason to have a pickup in the first place.

Here's what I think: anything smaller than a Ford F-150 is generally pointless. And 90% of the Ford F-150's sold are pointless, too.

But none of these are remotely as stupid as trucks with "super short beds".

I accept that there may be specific people with specific needs for whom a compact pickup makes sense. Perhaps there's even someone out there who needs a crew cab.

But at LEAST 90% of the pickup trucks in the United States are pointless and look stupid.

As long as I made ONE inflammatory post, I may as well make a second.

Tonight is not the end of "the" decade.

Nor will a year from tonight be the end of "the" decade.

Because there is no such thing as "the decade", with no further description.

Tonight is the end of the first decade of Lis and me living in this house. This past June 13 marked the first decade of Lis and my marriage. Sometime in this past April, I think, was when we had the first decade of our owning this house.

The fact that one of those decades coincides with a December-31-to-January-1 changeover, and therefore a year increment, is simply coincidence.

Tonight marks the end of "the decade defined by four digit years, in the Common Era, in which the first three digits of said year are '200'."

A year from tonight will mark the end of "the first decade of the Twenty-First century."

Neither of those are the decade. They are both examples of a decade.

January 1, 2000 is a perfectly reasonable date to start counting a decade from. So is January 1, 2001.

So is February 20, 1974 (the day I was born). July 4, 1776 (a day traditionally marked as the founding of the United States of America, even though nothing particular HAPPEND on that day). September 17, 1787 (the adoption of the current Constitution of the United States of America). December 5, 1933 -- a day beloved to my heart (the repeal of Prohibition). October 24, 1945 (the founding of the UN).

So -- anyone who tells you that the decade starts tonight -- they're right. Anyone who tells you that the decade starts next year -- they're right. Anyone who tells you that the decade will start at 4:51:23 AM on the third Thursday in May in 2014, they're right.