Those stitches in my head, installed last weekend in Story City, Iowa, came out today at my usual health provider. I wish it had been my splint coming off, but the splint is God’s way of saying, “Have I got your attention yet?” And of course the answer is no, so two more weeks with that.

My regular PA wasn’t available, so I saw another one, a very nice looking young woman. It was obvious she found me intensely attractive, but as is my wont I did not take advantage of her innocence.

I was down in Iowa for the weekend, not playing Viking but visiting family. They served steak for Sunday lunch, and my sister-in-law had to cut my meat up for me. Meanwhile, her daughter was cutting up her infant grandson’s food as well.

Thus life turns on its slow lazy susan, and what you gain on the swings you lose on the roundabouts.

On the way home I got a call from my realtor. He had been called by a lady in the gift shop at a rest stop in northern Iowa. Someone had found my wallet there (I still haven’t figured out how I dropped it), and she found his number on a card in it. He’d called the dean of the Bible school, who’d called my former boss, who gave him my cell phone number. It added better than an hour to my trip, but I got the wallet back, all money intact.

This is the upper midwest. The rules are different here.

More from our humor desk--a collection of actual headlines which read like they came from The Onion, e.g. “Service Rat Licks Woman When It’s Time To Take Meds” and “The Caperon, For When You Need An Apron But Also Might Need A Cape.”

Of course, the second headline is crazy for multiple reasons.

Mad Libs was my favorite thing to buy at my elementary school book fairs, if I had any money. I haven’t done much with them since. I remember introducing them to my children, and somehow they didn’t take to them well. Kids these days.

Mad Libs creator Leonard B. Stern, 88, has died. He has kicked the bucket, breathed his last, headed to the last round-up. Mr. Stern has resumed room temperature. He has cashed in his chips, dropped his oxygen habit, and is permanently out of print. I didn’t know until reading this article that Mr. Stern was one of the men behind Get Smart, Operation Petticoat, and The Honeymooners. In fact, it was while writing for The Honeymooners that he had the idea for Mad Libs.

The Wall Street Journal quotes Stern from 2003, saying, “If we knew the shows were going to become classics we would have written them better.”

Researchers Jean M. Twenge and W. Keith Campbell tested thousands of college students with statements like “I insist upon getting the respect that is due me,” and “I think I am a special person” to discover a 30% rise in narcissism from 1982 to 2006.

By 2006, 51% of 18- to 25-year-olds reported that “becoming” famous was an important goal to them—nearly five times more than those who said “becoming more spiritual” was important to them.

Some of us are famous for very good reasons, of course. Take myself, for example.

Joseph Epstein writes on boredom in Commentary: “Some people claim never to have been bored. They lie. … ‘I have discovered that all evil comes from this,’ wrote Pascal, ‘man’s being unable to sit still in a room.’” (via Books, Inq.)