Cooking is a daily have-to. When I got married, I saw cooking as my duty. When I had young children, I saw it as my responsibility. Now I'm wearing glasses and I see things differently. Now I see cook as a four-letter word. When bespectacled me was looking for help online, I found "Dream Dinners". Dream Dinners is a food preparation franchise. They provide a fully equipped kitchen, recipes, all the ingredients - pre-measured and pre-cut - as well as take-home containers and clean up. I haven't gone to Dream Dinners yet because I want my family to go with me. If my family wants to get fed, they have to be prepared to get fed up with cooking.



Because weekly vacuuming is another have-to, I again went online for help. This time I found "Roomba", the robotic vacuum cleaner. Since coming on the market in 2002, there have been new, improved models every year. Since January 2008, more than 2.5 million Roombas have been sold - but I'm not sold yet. I'm not ready to part with $399.99 plus tax until Roomba has legs and can vacuum stairs, until it has arms and can get itself unstuck and until its round disk can fit in a square corner.

Then there's going to the gym. I have to go to the gym three times a week because I have a fat conscience that won't stop nagging me. "Isn't this skirt fitting a little snugger than it use to?" "Didn't we have dessert last night?" "Isn't the bathroom scale looking a little dusty?" When my alarm clock goes off in the morning, I want to go back to sleep - not to the gym. Then I hear my conscience saying, "Fat chance".

Because of the high cost of gas, I'm not the only one for whom public transportation has become a have-to. Rail systems from Boston to LA are asking passengers not to travel at peak hours. There's standing-room only on Washington D.C.'s commuter busses. Seats have been removed from San Francisco's subway cars to provide more standing room. In the first quarter of 2008 subway ridership went up 9% in Boston and 11% in San Antonio. Rail ridership went up 17% in Baltimore and 28% in Seattle. Unfortunately, tight budgets are making local governments reluctant to allocate more money for pubic transportation. Again it seems we are caught between Iraq and a hard place.