Like many other human beings, I was deeply unhappy with the Lost finale the other night, and with the final season overall. Mostly for the usual reasons (they all walk into the light? seriously?), but also for one specific reason: the death of Sun and Jin, the doomed Korean lovers.

[SPOILER ALERT!] In case you didn’t see the show, here’s how they died: They were on a submarine and a bomb went off, blowing a hole in the side and trapping Sun under a piece of debris. She tells Jin to leave her, he says he won’t, and they drown lovingly together, speaking their non-native English all the way to the end.

Romantic, right? Well, the only problem here is that they’ve got a 3-year-old daughter back out in the real world, who’s now an orphan. Um, great parenting, guys! Hate to be judgmental, but I think it’s better to skip the romance and let the kid have her father around.

But that’s not my real complaint. My real problem is that my wife happened to watch that episode (and the finale, which flashed back to it) with me, and now constantly asks me what I’d do in that situation. This is one of those impossible, no-win spousal arguments:

• Me: “But who’s going to look after Sasha?”
• Jean: “Pretend she doesn’t exist.”
• Me: “But I don’t want to die!”
• Jean: “Hmph!”

Is there any way to get out of this? I mean, besides just saying yes, I’ll die with you? If only Lost had ended in such a way that I could imagine my death actually helped save the world, I could maybe be okay with it. But we all know now that Lost was a gigantic waste of time—a compelling, complicated drama that eventually turned its back on everything that made it appear to be good. And that does not put me in a romantic mood. Sorry, Jean. As Jack always said, “Live together, die alone.”

I put out the question yesterday–is tae kwon do good for 4-year-olds?–and got great responses. Keith pointed out that I repeatedly got my ass kicked as a kid because I was doing Olympic tae kwon do, and that 4 is too young really for martial arts. PetCobra (not to be confused with Cobra Kai) disagreed–the dojo is giving his grasshopper some good life lessons. Trish doubled the ante, saying that martial arts had given her kid, who has Aspergers, tools to build confidence and control. Paul and Juan also seemed happy with their kids’  martial arts schools.

Tammy, however, raised a question that I don’t really know how to answer: why do dance or martial arts at all? Why not just let her play, if the girl is only 4? The thought hadn’t really crossed my mind. We’re so conditioned already to group activities, and with the long summer starting and school ending, some sort of structure to the day seems advisable. But I’m not sure I have a good reason as to why just playing would be detrimental. Kids do seem to treat the jungle gym as an opportunity for extreme feats of flexibility and acrobatics anyhow.

It turns out, though, that there may be an ulterior motive to all of this. In a new development–twist!–my wife explained that she wanted to take some kind of martial arts as well. And that perhaps I should join her. And that she had heard good things about something called Wing Chun. From Wikipedia: “A correct Wing Chun[ stance is like a piece of bamboo, firm but flexible, rooted but yielding.” Okay, I can handle that, and I know PetCobra took up martial arts again along with his son, but I had not really considered that all of a sudden we would become an entire pseudo-Shaolin family. I had merely been thinking of something to keep the daughter from going apeshit over summer.

Note that my wife hasn’t done martial arts before. Her main concern, only half-joking, was that maybe the first time she walks into the class, “people will start running at me, dropping from the ceiling and stuff.” I think she has seen one too many 1980s ninja flicks.

But again I throw the question out there to you, who seem to be oddly well-informed about all of this: Do it as a family? Wing Chun? Huh?

Comes now a report from the ad world: The new Huggies are here, printed to look like sexy, sexy denim jeans, and the sexy, sexy ad for these is offending some with its sexy sexiness.

What I want to know has nothing to do with the ad: What poor shmuck thinks this product was a good idea, a necessary idea, or an idea worth defending? It’s a disposable diaper. It’s going to be covered in feces shortly.  But never mind that its decor is irrelevant, and that once it’s been pooed upon it won’t look so hot. Never mind also that they’re usually contained in his pants, and invisible. What I want to know is: Shouldn’t every parent be demanding dye-free diapers, given that they go next to your baby’s skin all day? Listen, I’m not some earthy-crunchy guy. I’m all for plastics instead of glass, say, when there’s a good reason–breakage safety, throwability, whatever. But this stuff does nothing except get into the wastewater. I don’t get it. Someone, fill me in, in short one-syllable words so I can get it clearly?