Wisdom teeth. Everyone gets them eventually, for some they aren't a problem but for most they are. My wisdom teeth are not fully grown in yet but they have already become a pain.

Why do they call them wisdom teeth anyway? Am I supposed to be really wise by now, because I think I have much more to learn... I know I am an adult and all but there is so much I still don't know.

Which brings me to my next point. I don't want to know anymore than I already do. It seems like the older and "wiser" we get the more miserable we are.

Why is this? I think that as we learn more and more about the world we learn how warped our society is. As a child you are blind to all the horrible things going on around you. No one wants to take the innocence from a child, so for a while we are happy and content. But then it happens... we grow up... and then we have to strive more and more to make ourselves content.

I don't understand the adults that are always so happy. All smiles all the time. How do you do it? You should know that our world is a complete mess... why are you so happy? Do you just fake it? If not, and you really are content, I think I need your help... I want to be happy too!

Like the pain we endure when we first receive our wisdom teeth, so is the pain we endure from knowledge. Quite frankly, I don't want either.

Remember biorhythms? Back in the seventies, maybe the eighties, some people promoted the concept that the ebbs and flows in our lives are beyond our control.

There may have been a belief that our emotional cycles were controlled by the tides or the moons. I guess I didn't pay much attention to it. After all, this was the era of the pet rock and the mood ring, so how much credibility could any of these crackpot theories really have?

But biorhythms at least are observable. We all know we feel better some days than others, even though we can't always pinpoint the reasons. Who am I to say it's not because of the tides?

All I know is, if there is such a thing as biorhythms, mine hit a significant low over the last weekend. I wasn't feeling all that great Thursday or Friday at work, but in a job like this one there isn't much time to sit around moaning about feeling a little peaked.

There are plenty of potential villains.

I've been fighting a slight cold, so that could have something to do with it.

A recent wisdom tooth extraction continues to nag at me a bit, with one tooth extremely sensitive to extreme temperatures, a condition I occasionally forget while taking a long swig of a cold beverage, much to my discomfort for several minutes afterward.

Job responsibilities have been especially pressing lately, and I suppose I harbor a certain amount of resentment over a schedule that doesn't include much room for "me time." Everyone has their own burdens, and mine are no heavier than anyone else's, but the pressure bears down on all of us now and again.

As usual, the result of all this self-pity was transferring my anger to those around me. I guess we all do this at times, with the understanding (the hope?) that our loved ones will forgive us for being jerks while complete strangers might not. When the real cause of the occasional malaise doesn't have a solution, it's much easier to start fights with our wives and kids and dogs.

After a long day Saturday, I went to bed knowing that while I had to come to the office for a couple of hours on Sunday, I would have the luxury of sleeping late. I figured that at least part of my problem was related to a lack of rest.

Unfortunately, my middle-aged bladder had other ideas. After a 4 a.m. trip to the bathroom, I tossed and turned for another hour or so before finally just getting up, reading the paper, and silently resenting my wife for the steady breathing of her contented sleep.

Watching a half of the Rams game was good for a few laughs, but didn't do much to improve my mood. My daughter had a soccer game Sunday afternoon, so I yelled at her for not being PelÈ, but that didn't make me feel any better either.

Finally, Sunday night, I sought refuge by the stove. Zo" loves homemade chocolate chip cookies, and puttering around in the kitchen usually proves to be therapeutic for me.

Not in this case, however. The cookies turned out burned and flat and sticky and salty, and I was convinced it was just the latest volley from life in its endless quest to tick me off.

Now mind you, I've got a track record of making outstanding chocolate chip cookies. I've made delicious, golden, melty chocolate chip cookies so many times I could recite the recipe in my sleep. It just wasn't possible that I had messed anything up.

"That's it," I screamed. "I'm never making chocolate chip cookies again!" The cookies seemed to be wickedly grinning at me as I shoveled them down the garbage disposal.

A look of vague terror swept over Zo"'s face. "You can't just give up," she said, her lower lip trembling ever so slightly. "They'll turn out better next time."

Sybil tried to be helpful by reading the recipe, but I cut her off.

"I know, I know," I said, "three quarter cup of granulated sugar, three quarter cup of brown sugar, two sticks of butter, two and a quarter cups of flour..."

She continued, "...a teaspoon of salt... a teaspoon of baking powder... two eggs..."

"Wait a minute," I said, "a teaspoon of baking powder?"

It took a bad batch of chocolate chip cookies for me to realize what I should have known all along. The cause of all my troubles was easily identifiable. It was me.

The good news about bad biorhythms is that they turn around eventually, and I'll trust my cycle will be up (or at least, sideways) again in the near future.

In the meantime, if you ran into me over the weekend and I was rude, I'm sorry. If you ran into me and I seemed to be in a good mood, I was faking it.