There is a certain kind of column that comes so fast and easy that I’m not sure I should get paid for writing it.

I mean it, like manna from heaven, it just lands with a thud right there in front of my laptop and my fingers can’t even stop themselves from tap-tap-tapping away.

This kind of column is the irrepressible giggle at a funeral, the raised eyebrow at the pregnant bride. I listen to a phone message, read a story buried on page 13, or chat with a colleague who’s just called me over with a wave of the arm, shouting, “Oh, Connieeee, I think I’ve got something here for you….”

And there it is: an easy day’s pay.

This section covers the head-shaking part of life. You know what I mean. You hear something or see it with your own eyes and you can’t help but think somebody has got to be kidding. But there they are, life’s little absurdities sprouting like milkweeds on a tidy lawn. You can’t miss them, and you can’t ignore them, either. Well, I can’t anyway, so I yank them out of the ground and yell, “Lookee, lookee, what I just found.”

Who couldn’t find a column in stories like these:

A young mother calls me and leaves this message: We went to a Cleveland Browns game, and they made us buy a $37 ticket for our five-month-old son—who was strapped to a Baby Bjorn on my husband’s chest.

A New York Times story declares that friends and entire families—from beloved grandparents to cousins you can’t stand—are now showing up in hospital delivery rooms for the big event. Sometimes more than one father-to-be shows up, too, and that’s a duel you can’t hee-hee-who your way through no matter how many gold Mommy Stars you earned in Lamaze.

Ohio lawmakers—do I even need to say these are all men?—want to ban breast-feeding in public places because such acts of nature might rob grown men of their last ounce of common sense and force them to gawk.

Honestly.

And I get paid to write about this stuff.

Granted, I am the butt of some of my own jokes in this section, but let me just say in my defense that I really thought I had turned off my cell phone before church and I’m sure I can’t be the only one worrying about how many of my fellow airline passengers have been underestimating the weight of their baggage, so to speak.

And when are choir directors going to stop giving sopranos all the fun parts? I’m telling you, a lifetime of droning rum-pum-pum-pum does things to you.