Illustration: Kathryn Rathke

1. Nurse's uniforms

If they really wanted us to feel better, they'd stop with the pastel hearts and cartoon puppies. Let's just hope Blue Sky Scrubs' sleek, chic duds catch on, and quick. (BlueSkyScrubs.com)

2. The remote control

On. Off. Channel up, channel down. Volume. List of recorded shows; play, stop, erase. Seriously, clicker manufacturers: This is all we need. (Unless you'd like to add a button that does the laundry.)

3. Airplane coffee

They can put a 74-ton hunk of metal in the air, and yet...

4. State Capitals

Sacramento? Tallahassee? Albany? Hmmph. San Francisco! Miami! New York City!

5. Women's Halloween costumes

Dear sexy kitty cat, she-devil, and French maid: There are many fabulous women you could be (Queen Elizabeth, Billie Holiday, Velma from Scooby-Doo) without all your business hanging out.

6. Corporatespeak

Just a heads-up on a new action item: Going forward, let's cultivate a paradigm shift by interfacing across portals to adopt a frictionless, dynamic language metric. In other words, let's speak English at the office. (But if your workplace won't allow it, be proactive and steal some lingo from the Corporate B.S. Generator at Atrixnet.com.)

7. Hotel bedspreads
Despite those undercover TV segments that turned up traces of urine, semen, and worse, most hotels still don't wash their bedspreads between guests. Here's a thought: They've made their bed; maybe they need to lie in it.

8. Plastic packaging
If you've ever cut yourself on a razor-sharp shard of polyvinyl blister pack, you know what we mean. And if you're a black-footed albatross living near the Pacific trash vortex, you also know what we mean.

But if it ain't broke, don't fix it! Here are four things that are just fine the way they are