Ask Mr. Smartypants

Today, I expose my dirty little secret, or rather dirty little secret No. 2,193, knowing many of you share this shame.

Thanks to working nights, an inability to force our daughter to sleep in her own room and very different snoozing and viewing habits for myself and my wife, I live in a sparsely furnished dorm room.

And thanks to Charter cable, I have reached the end of my badly frayed rope.

When Quinn was born, I was working two jobs, mild-mannered reporter by day, world's angriest waiter by night. When I got home at 1 a.m., Quinn would be in bed with Angela. I would pick her up and, when Angela stirred, say, "The baby is restless, I'll take her downstairs."

We would watch ESPN or a movie together for a couple of hours, each of us enjoying our respective bottles, then I would put her back in bed with Angela and catch a few hours' sleep in the guest room. Quinn was the size of a baking potato and I was the size of Idaho, so I did not want to risk "mashing the spud."

We would redecorate Quinn's room every few months, and she would say, "Mommy, that's beautiful," then refuse to sleep in it. In four different homes, Quinn managed to own five separate beds situated in seven rooms, all the while spending pretty much every night "in the big bed."

Quinn would say, "I love mommy, and I get scared when I sleep alone." This meant, "I am addicted to television like it's heroin and there is not one in my room. If you want me to go eight hours without TV, think rehab."

At one point, when I was working only days, we did move Quinn into her room for about a month. This was long enough to trade the comfy bed I slept in to my mother-in-law for a futon, at which point I went back on nights, Quinn went back to Angela, and I was suddenly sleeping on a futon.

When we finally got Quinn into her bed for good (with the lights on, the protection of 117 stuffed animals and, possibly, cloves of garlic), Angela and I had become incompatible. I get home at 1 a.m. and like to watch "The Daily Show" and "The Colbert Report," but turn the TV off and go to bed as soon as I get sleepy.

Angela wakes up when I switch the TV to Comedy Central, then wants to keep it tuned to "CSI: Miami" all night long. I don't sleep well with the TV on, and David Caruso gives me a fierce set of the jeebies.

Additionally, Angela and I do not think romance is enhanced by living in close quarters or hearing each other's sleep noises. We believe real passion springs from separate bathrooms, alone time, adequate rest, scented candles, extinguished lights and bargaining.

So I sleep on a rock-hard futon in a room equipped with a 13-inch Sylvania and a scarred night table. It's like the room the guys in "Shawshank Redemption" live in when they get out of jail, but it provides cable, and solitude, which is what men really need.

But 25-year-old TVs only get so many channels. Mine gets 60. Charter moved Comedy Central to 67 this week.

So there it is, my secret life. I'm now just an exhausted man on a futon weeping bitterly at an ancient TV that no longer receives Jon Stewart.

Honestly, it's enough to make a guy break down and sleep with his wife.

Attending the town hall meetings of Rep. Bob Inglis and Sen. Jim DeMint on Thursday helped me see the issue clearly: We must stop listening to people, on either side, who engage in only half of the American conversation.

Inglis made this point beautifully. Asked whether he believes health care is a right, he said it is not, but he immediately addressed the other half of the conversation, saying he has "an obligation to care for the least of these among us, helping them with food, clothing and shelter."

Exactly. No one has any right to demand anything from me, but I have an obligation to provide for the less fortunate.

If you think it's OK for broken bones to go unset in America, then you're not part of the real conversation. If you would deny a poor person with an infection three bucks worth of penicillin, then you're not part of the real conversation.

You have a right to your opinion, but we're trying to have a civilization here. The greatest, richest, most philanthropic country in history doesn't let people die from easily treated problems.

But if you think the health insurance companies should be shut down, the doctors should all work for the government and no one should have better care than anyone else, you're not part of the conversation. We're trying to have a free nation here, and I'll buy ritzy health care if I want to.

And when we get the selfish, racist and xenophobic folks shushed, and we get the leftist, wealth-hating big-government loving freaks quiet, we can have the real conversation.

The real conversation is about levels of care, and delivery systems. The health care that needs to be available to all people should be about as good as government cheese and must be delivered via a cheaper method than emergency rooms.

Ban the dispensing of non-critical care in emergency rooms and set up government-run doc-in-a-boxes, urgent care centers open very long hours, one per county. Set up specialty offices, for cancer and the like, every 10 counties. Staff them with physicians paying off their student loans via a few years of service.

The lines would be long, the drugs generic, the service grumpy, the decor horrid. I wouldn't go there, because I have great health insurance. My company wouldn't cancel my insurance because poor people were allowed to get generic blood pressure medicine or an X-ray at a clinic. It would be cheaper than emergency rooms flooded with the uninsured seeking painkillers, stitches and antibiotics.

Health insurance carriers won't be destroyed by the public health insurance option because there won't be one.

Poor people dying for lack of a reasonable amount of medical treatment is not an acceptable option in America. We have the responsibility to do better. Single-payer health care is not an option in America. We have the right to ask for, and buy, more.

I pay taxes, and I say if someone's poor and hungry, give them a big, cheap hunk of cheese. If they're poor and sick, get them basic treatment.

Not because they deserve it, but because it's my obligation.

America is at its best when citizens and government pay attention to rights and responsibilities in equal measure.

By the time my wife mentioned that none of the electrical outlets in her bathroom were working, I had nearly forgotten the plume of sparks arcing out of my daughter's bedroom wall the day before.

I was installing hooks for a series of nets Angela purchased to hold Quinn's stuffed animals, which currently number 1,337 and are subdivided by species, size, cuddliness, corporate family (Disney, Pixar, WebKinz, etc.) and, for all I know, political affiliation.

Quinn collects stuffed animals compulsively for the same reason she lives on a diet composed entirely of cheese pizza, cheese toast, cheeseburgers, macaroni and cheese, grilled cheese and, just for a non-cheese thrill, chicken tenders: Because before she was born, Angela and I always said, "I tell you one thing, our kid isn't going to be some stuffed animal-obsessed picky eater," and God heard us.

So I was drilling holes to install the anchors for the hooks for the nets. Years ago, I would have skipped the anchors and just screwed the hooks into the sheetrock, causing the animal-filled contraptions to crash down on my sleeping daughter in the night and teaching her to deal with sudden, suffocating fear, but I've grown.

And as I was drilling a hole near a corner, a thick, steady, fairly beautiful stream of sparks shot out of the wall.

"Ahhhhhh," I shrieked courageously and stopped drilling. The sparks ceased, too, but the room filled with an odd odor: melted rubber, ozone and my terror stink.

While I terrify easily, I also have a short attention span, so once the sparks abated, I installed the anchors and hooks, hung the nets and forgot the whole thing.

Then, the next morning, Angela said, "The outlets where I plug in my makeup mirror and curlers are dead."

Me: "You do not need makeup or fancy hairstyles. You glow with a natural beauty."

Angela: "So you've done something horrible and don't know how to fix it?"

Me: "Well, there were sparks shooting out of Quinn's wall yesterday, but I assumed it was fine because ... Man, that's a hard sentence to finish when you say it out loud."

So I looked at the breaker box, tried switches, went in the oven-like attic, scratched my head and allowed myself to get frustrated by the fact that every time I walked past Angela, she'd say, hopefully, "Did you get it?"

Me: "Until I tell you otherwise, assume I'm failing miserably and stop asking."

Finally, I called my ex-boss and still friend, Carl, who has a passion for electricity. He came right over, his eyes glowing as I explained about the sparks, my terrified squeals and the dead plugs.

We cut out a small piece of sheetrock, just enough to let us see that yes, I had drilled through not one but two electrical wires, then left them in the wall, exposed and live, insulated only by hyper-flammable furballs.

A trip to Lowe's, a much larger hole in the wall, wires, junction boxes and a heroically excessive Taco Bell break later, the problem was solved.

As for the gaping maw in the sheetrock, thank God for enormous nets full of stuffed animals. I don't think my wife will even realize it's there until Quinn leaves for college.

Sometimes, when I've stopped at a red light, looked for cars, then gingerly turned right, my wife will say, "That sign says no right turn on red, dear," and I will respond, "They don't mean me."

Since that's what so many of us believe about so many laws, I think it's admirably honest of me to simply admit it.

They don't mean I should drive 55. They don't mean I should pay all that federal income tax. They don't mean I shouldn't dump my 55-gallon drum of Aqua Velva in the creek, shouldn't distill my own kumquat vodka, shouldn't plot the overthrow of … well, the details aren't the point.

The point is, they don't mean me when they talk about all those laws. They mean the other people. The little people.

You people, in other words.

But then I'm out and about, starring in the movie that is my life (and in which so many of you do a great job as extras -- thanks for all the hard work), and I start interacting with cads who think laws don't apply to them. That's ridiculous, because laws exist to control other people, so they don't screw up the movie that is my life.

So people don't follow the leash law in the city of Spartanburg. Mostly, I don't care. If you live on my street and your dog's behavior earns my personal approval, then it's all good. If you and your dog hang in places I never go, then I don't insist you leash your dog, because it's no skin off my pudding if they terrorize the non-Lane populace.

I personally follow the leash law because my dog, Rosie the WonderBoston, is a moron. Untethered, Rosie would chase every car, squirrel and cat she encountered for approximately 3,023 miles, then stop and look around as if she expected the house, her food and her bed (okay, my bed) to have followed her across the country.

But pet owners are letting their dogs run loose on the Cottonwood Trail. That's a problem because I jog (and jiggle) on the Cottonwood Trail. These loose dogs are friendly, which is why the owners think it's OK to let them run free.

So I'll be zooming down the path at a fat-boy sprint of 4.7 miles per hour when, suddenly, a golden retriever will bound happily toward me and come to a direct stop in my path.

I try to instantly stop the forward motion of all 211 pounds of hurtling Laneflesh, but cannot. The feet stop, but the internal organs and spinal column continue forward, sloshing into each other and creating all sorts of long-term middle-age injuries I couldn't have imagined in my youth, when I fell 25 feet from tree branches, hopped up and happily went about my business.

"There's a leash law," I yell.

"Don't worry, he won't hurt you," the owner answers.

"No, he won't bite me," I retort as I try to rearrange my gall bladder, small intestine and ultra-masculine water bottle fanny pack. "He already hurt me. Just put him on his @#$%^%$# leash."

"I didn't see you coming," she replied, miffed.

"It's not a 'leash the mean dog' law," I scream. "It's not a 'leash the dog when you see someone coming' law. It's just a 'leash the dog' law."

Seriously, it's like these people think the law doesn't apply to them. I mean, who do they think they are? Me?