Occasionally, a cacophony of disjointed thoughts — “Brain-Droppings” if you will — gather ominously in my troubled mind. I typically file them away and ignore them until my head starts pounding. So today I'll get the relief I need by getting them out onto paper.Whoever coined the absurd notion, “There's no such thing as a free lunch?” There are plenty of free lunches out there … soup kitchens, homeless shelters, the volunteer-staffed, free Thanksgiving dinners for the poor that most communities offer each November. Even a half-eaten Whopper discarded in a dumpster is technically a free lunch if one is enterprising enough to seek it out.

(There is however, no such thing as a free haircut, as I'll explain more fully in my next column).

You don't see the ol' “Pull my finger” gag as much as you used to. Also a dying art is the “I'll kneel on all fours behind him and you push him” classic. In all my years, I've never seen the victim actually injured from the tumble, and since it only requires a slight shove, even two meek gals can perpetrate this timeless prank on a cocky guy.

I'd have never guessed it could happen, but it did to me the other day. In an unlikely convergence of unrelated events occurring spontaneously, I had a mouthful of hot coffee and suddenly had to sneeze with no time to possibly swallow first. Luckily it was here in the privacy of my own writing office — although the cat dozing in the desk drawer beside woke up and fled rather quickly — so only my carpet and nearby papers were splattered and stained.

I used to occasionally pull a muscle when I was in my 20s, and still do now in my 50s. The only difference is that in my 20s, I always remembered doing something specific that caused it, and I was always awake.

A meal is not a meal without plenty of bread spread thickly with butter. Like my Dad used to say, “I want to see my teeth marks in the bread.” The only meals I won't demand bread with are pizza and pancakes.

I know the rules of winter driving say to pump the brakes … never lock. But when I'm slowly sliding towards another vehicle, that's as nearly-impossible to do as swallowing the coffee before the sudden sneeze culminates.

I think the worst poem ever is the “Thirty days has September, April, June and November. All the rest have 31 — except for February which has 28, and leap year gives it 29.” It rhymes just fine at first, but once you get into that whole February thing, the cadence is all off.

At least “i before e except after c” rhymes, although it often doesn't hold true, (i.e. “their,” “Seinfeld,” “Mein Kampf, etc). We could just as easily state, “o before u, except after q,” even though “buoy” begs to differ.

I actually absent-mindedly finished a prayer late one night with “See ya,” instead of “Amen.”

I've written scores of ignored “viewer mail” letters to Bill O'Reilly over the years, but I refuse to play the game anymore. With all his tips for having your letter read on-air, he never mentions the only guarantee: “Brag up my book, ‘Bold Fresh' somewhere in your letter.”

If you agree “F-Troop” was one of the funniest TV shows ever, the Cowsills were a great singing group, and Joey Heatherton was a stone-cold fox, you're somewhere around my age.

If dogs drank alcohol, would they just roll over and go back to sleep first thing in the morning when we hustle toward the front door, jingling car keys while saying, “Go for a RIDE?” Would border collies often call in sick on Monday mornings during herding season? Would poodles defiantly bark at German Shepherds, “I cun drink jush as mush as you!”

If housecats drank, would they … well, come to think of it, I guess they'd pretty much do exactly the same things as they do sober.

You don't have to be my age to sadly miss Rodney Dangerfield's Sad Sack humor? Ah Rodney, you had me at “I saw a guy jogging naked on my street the other night. I asked him, ‘Why do you do it?' and he said “Because you came home early!”

I wonder if dyslexic alcoholics crave hot beer and cold pizza when they get off work?