Why do bad things happen to good people?

Why do bad things happen to good people? This is the age old question. I am not going to do much to answer it (sorry). I was working on some stuff for Junior High Youth Group and was looking for some stories and came across a message board with this response to the question (this post is mostly because of the quote below - not really to answer the question):

yes bad things happen for a reason
god ignores our plees for help
and our good deeds
then when hes watching us do bad things
KABAAMO
You are attacked by a giraffe with rabies

That last line makes me laugh hard.

The start of a simple answer: We have the question backwards. We should ask - "Why do good things happen to us (we aren't as good as we think we are - or so Scripture says)?"