Maybe there were more than four things, but these stood out:

1. The design isn’t intelligent if the parts wear out before the productive life of the unit is over. Teeth were not meant for a life of 80 or 90 years, and dentists make a living off this fact.

2. It’s not fun getting up at 5 a.m. to see your husband and son off on a daylong field trip to Vancouver BC when you know you’ll be in a dental chair for two hours.

3. Even if you can choose whatever you want for dinner, it’s not as much fun eating it alone as something less tasty is when you dine with said husband and son.

4. The house remains exceptionally quiet without my dog. And since the boys won’t be home until after 10 p.m., I imagine the silence will only grow more pervasive.

And here’s a bonus. Here I sit missing the noise and I know with a certainty that I will be upset with the noise of tomorrow morning or tomorrow night. I will forget that I had this time to myself and all I could think of was how much I missed my family.

You see, we’re back to unintelligent design again.