While looking through some old columns, I ran across something I wrote in 2004 about unanswered questions.

Part of it struck me as still being applicable — albeit with a different cast of characters — so here it is:

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The high point I’ve seen in the (presidential and vice presidential) debates so far came when John Edwards stated that never before have the American people been as divided as they are now.

Dick Cheney’s eyebrows went up at that, and so did mine, and it’s possible we were both asking ourselves the same question:

What would Lincoln have said about that?

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Having now lost 17 pounds in response to warnings from my physician, I recently rummaged through one of my closets and found three pair of pants I hadn’t been able to wear for a few years.

They fit just fine, and that reminded me about an old TV commercial that advertised some diet or exercise plan.

This commercial stars a young woman who greets her girlfriends in a state of high excitement, hopping around like an 8-year-old who needs to visit a bathroom RIGHT NOW. (I suppose I could be exaggerating, but this is how I choose to remember it.)

We’ll call her Brunhilde. Her enthusiasm is infectious, and her galpals are soon squealing and bouncing and clapping their hands, just like she is. They want to know what’s going on.

“Brutus just saw me in my skinny pants!!!” she shrieks.

Brutus, of course, is her ex-boyfriend. The idea that Brunhilde has inflicted such dire retribution upon him makes them all delirious with joy.

What’s left to our imaginations — mine, at least — is what happens when Brutus runs into a couple of his buddies. I offer this scenario:

Brutus is looking perplexed and a bit sad, and his pals want to know what’s up.

“Remember how hot Brunhilde was?” he asks them. They remember all too well and nod silently in agreement.

“I just saw her,” Brutus goes on, “and she looks like death warmed over. She’s wastin’ away to nothin’ and looks like she’s aged 10 years. I hope she ain’t sick.”

There are certain words no self-respecting man should use around self-respecting women, particularly “age” and “fat” (unless it’s in reference to wine or beef) or their synonyms. It’s darn near impossible to explain this to somebody who doesn’t already know why.

One of my favorite Arlo and Janis comics dates from the time when their son, Gene, was still a little kid.

In the first panel, Janis is hugging herself and looking miserable with the shivers.

In the second panel, Gene asks her, “Mom, if women have an extra layer of fat, how come they get cold so easily?”

In the third panel, Janis is gone and Arlo is telling Gene, “With age comes wisdom.”

Having been one myself, I know there are times when a kid thinks up clever things to say to his mom, then lives to regret them.

One of these lapses in judgment occurred at the dinner table when I told my mother, “Aw, if it’s clean enough to walk on, it’s clean enough to eat off of.” (The concept alone was bad enough, but I had compounded the offense with bad grammar in the eyes of my mother, the English teacher.)

On another occasion, we were over in the country at the Calemines’ camp, sitting on the porch when Mom got up and went into the house, then returned and handed me my sweater.

I looked at my father and asked him, “Hey, Dad? You know what a sweater is?”

He looked at me as if to ask, “Is this going to get both of us in trouble?” and hesitantly shook his head.

“It’s something you put on,” I told him, “when your mother gets cold.”

The problem is that even after we’ve supposedly grown up and become men, we haven’t learned from our youthful mistakes. We keep saying things that have the worst possible effect upon the women in our lives ... even when we ought to know better.

I was sitting at a table in a bar with a buddy and his girlfriend when she asked him if he was going to come over to her house for dinner the next night.

“What are you fixing?” he asked.

“Lasagna,” she said.

Seeing a chance to help my friend score a few points, I asked him if she made good lasagna.

“It’s edible,” he replied.

“EDIBLE????!!!!” she bellowed, leaping out of her chair and coming halfway across the table toward him. “EDIBLE!!!!????”

“It’s not as good as my mom’s,” he added, totally unperturbed.

She got even with him, eventually: She married him.

During one of my former relationships, I was expected to help with the dishes. And that was all right. I didn’t mind. One person cooks, two people eat, two people clean up. She didn’t trust me to assist with the cooking part.

My job was to dry the dishes after she washed them, and that was all right, too, because that was the easier of the two jobs.

It was a good working arrangement ... I thought. One night, she announced with an air of considerable determination that I should take a turn at washing.

Apparently, my efforts didn’t suit her because after I’d taken about three minutes to wash three dishes, she said, “Gimme that!” and snatched the washcloth out of my hands.

After our next dinner, I went immediately to the sink, draped a dishtowel over my left forearm, raised my right hand in salute and said, “We, who are about to dry, salute you!”

Things seem to go downhill after that.