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11-1-2001

Dear Aunt Nettie:

What do you do when you run out of Prozac and football season is just starting and the holidays are coming?

-- Despairing in Des Plaines

Dear Despairing:

I suggest catatonic withdrawal. A nice stupor, accompanied by a cessation of motor activity, disregard of one's surroundings, muteness and rigidity is an excellent way of responding to stressful situations like these. 

My cousin Noreen could trigger catatonic attacks at will. She used to do it as an attention-getting device, usually right at the start of the football season when all the menfolk in her family went into a near stupor themselves in front of the TV set. It worked pretty well until the first Super Bowl game in 1967, which extended the playing season so far that she almost starved to death before someone noticed that she hadn't moved since early September. 

Deciding that catatonia was dangerous to her health she took up hysteria instead, which at least amused the neighbors....

11-2-2001

Dear Aunt Nettie: 

Who is the man in the moon? Do you know if he's single?

-- Moonstruck in Montana

Dear Moonstruck:

The moon that circles the Earth is an airless lump of rock devoid of life, so it's not exactly a singles bar in terms of unattached males. If you're truly fond of things lunar I suggest hanging around a planetarium instead. You'll find an excellent selection of affection-starved geeks who are mostly house-trained and unlikely to stray.

I'm certain that the guy who moons our rest home every night is single. He and his buddy come by in their pick-em-up truck around one o'clock in the morning with the bed full of Pabst Blue Ribbon cans and Dolly Parton on the 8-track. I wish I still had my faithful 10-gauge and a handful of rock salt. I'd put a stop to their little game faster than you can say "consulting proctologist." 

11-3-2001

Dear Aunt Nettie:

It's rumored, through the foreign press, that you're about to retire. Please tell me that it isn't so, Dear Aunt Nettie. Your daily kind pensive thoughts and gentle advice means more to me than Ari Fleischer's daily briefings. Please reconsider your thoughts about leaving us, Aunt Nettie.

-- George in Government

Dear George:

Not to worry, you're simply being fed disinformation again. Stay away from the Iraqi News Agency and you'll be fine. Saddam would love to see me retire and would no doubt claim it as a victory in his attempt to crush the spirit of the American people.

I'm not planning to retire for several reasons. First and foremost, this gives me a reason for living. Without the daily stress and mental exercise of putting together coherent responses to less-than-coherent questions, I'd be chained to a wall watching "Leave It to Beaver" reruns on the Incontinence Channel like all the other overripe vegetables here. 

Secondly, I believe it's important for me to demonstrate that really, really old people can have an active place in the information society, even though our bodies have for all intents and purposes stopped functioning. Years ago I would have been tucked in a corner with only a few people to aggravate. Thanks to modern technology I can annoy and exasperate thousands of people every day, clear across the world.

Finally, I believe that I'm doing my part to influence world leaders in my own small way. When I look at the daily logins from your Oval Office, from 10 Downing Street, from the Reichstag, the Hague, the UN, the Kremlin and so many others, I feel a growing spot of warmth that indicates my Depends have failed again.

ps/ That last speech? It's "cluster bomb," not "clutter bomb." And "carpet bombing" has nothing to do with deodorizing rugs.

pps/ Message for Tony: We appreciate the ardent support, but you are not the Prime Minister of the United States, technically speaking.

ppps/ Message for Vlad: I don't think Americans are quite ready for the concept of Russia as the 51st state, but keep trying. Good work on the Texas accent. 

11-4-2001

Dear Aunt Nettie: 

So how have you been keeping yourselves amused in old "Living Dead 'R' Us" lately? Any more casino trips?

-- Idle in Idlewild

Dear Idle:

No, our last venture out pretty much put the kibosh on field trips, at least for the immediate future. At this moment we're keeping ourselves literally in stitches by attempting to drive the new recreational therapy person insane, the latest in a long series of perky types they keep inflicting on us.

This one-- Ashleigh is her name, which we pronounce Ash-lay-guh-huh just to get her goat-- decided that all us "ladies" were going to learn cross-stitch, which is a way of sewing little Xs in colored thread onto a piece of cloth to form a picture. Well, she showed us lots of mind-deadening patterns of kitties and puppies and "God Bless Our Home" slogans, but we had worked out in advance what we wanted to do, and insisted on dung beetles. You should have seen her backtrack, change colors and lose her synthetic smile-- it was a sight to see. 

She then began trying to convince us that no such pattern existed, but thanks to Madam Helen at http://drokk.com/projects/dungbeetle/ we were prepared for that objection, too, and we had her nailed to the wall so to speak. We then began discussing colors. Some of us claimed to want buffalo chip brown, others cow-pie café au lait, and there was a whole contingent that asked for flavors like diaper dung, fuscous fudge and kaka khaki.

So here we sit, all 23 of us, solemnly cross-stitching dung beetles on a Sunday afternoon, while Ashleigh is on the telephone frantically trying to head off the minister's traditional Sabbath visit. We will, of course, tell him that dung beetles were all her idea, and that we would have much preferred doing "God Bless Our Home" samplers.... 

Tomorrow we'll have to add another notch to our recreational therapist scorecard.

11-5-2001

Dear Aunt Nettie: 

Why do we have to study history in school? History is so boooooooring! Who cares what happened hundreds or thousands of years ago to a lot of dead people? 

-- Contemporary in Contra Costa

Dear Contemporary:

Why, shame on you! History is vitally important to our understanding of who we are and how we got here, just like a combination ID card and subway map. Remember what that great educator and brewmaster, Samuel Adams said: "Those who do not learn the lessons of history are condemned to repeat a grade."

The problem is that classroom instruction teaches only names and dates and wars and stuff. What you really need is a shot of what day to day life was like back then, seen through the eyes of those who lived out these events. Let me see if I can rectify this situation.

I am fortunate to be in possession of my great-great-grandmother's diary, which tells us what life was like for a small group of the earliest pioneers, who came to this country not to seek fame and fortune, not for religious freedom, not to found great cities in this new land, but simply because they were burdens on society, owed a lot of money they couldn't pay back, or because the lunatic asylums were full and there was nothing in the budget for expansion.

Thus it was that my great-great-grandmother was packed aboard the MS Narrenshiff, a German four-master, one cloudy September day in 1634, bound for the new world and the bracing hazards of life in a New England settlement. Here, in her very words, is an account of the beginning of that perilous voyage.

--------------------------

14 September, Year of Our Lord 1634
34th Year of the Reign of His Majesty King Charles I 

Set to sea today. Was immediately ill as soon as we passed the seawall. Didst puke most of the afternoon and well into the night. Note to self: avoid puking into the wind at all costs, as one's garments pay a fitful price. 


15 September, Year of Our Lord 1634
34th Year of the Reign of His Majesty King Charles I 
Moon in Aquarius

Puking much improved. The old adage about practice making perfect is certainly true, although I shall never be the equal of Master Humphries of London Town, who managed to bring up several feet of intestine this morning.


16 September, Yr of Or Lord 1634
34th Yr of the Reign of HM King Charles I 
Gale winds due south-southwest

Puking now coordinated with ship's motion: inhale as she rises, puke as she falls. Funeral at sea for Master Humphries, who brought up both lungs just after sunrise. One of the four ship's masters presided. Lost his hat during the Lord's Prayer, which vexed him to the point of blasphemy. The other 3 masters bickered about direction again, the compass having apparently been swept overboard during high seas today.


17 Septber, Yr Or Lrd 1634
34th Yr of HM King Charles I 
Hurricane winds driving us south-southwest

Bracing day for puking. Standing at the prow with the wind at our backs, can watch the vomitus streak out before us all green and noxious. Weather warming. One of the four masters was missing this morning. Report of shots fired around midnight cannot be confirmed.


18 Sept, Yr Or Lrd 1634
34th Yr Charls I 

Another excellent day for puking. Kept to my bunk today, which in consequence is now a great mess. Second master lost overboard when he became inadvertently shackled to a length of pig iron while leaning out over the taffrail to relieve his bowels. Weather much warmer. New England may be a more pleasant place than it has been described.


20 Sept, Yr Or Lrd 1634

Met several of the other passengers this morning while waiting on the line to puke. All former residents of Bedlam Hospital, a much more elegant affair than our poor lunatic asylum in Shaftsbury. Third master gone missing afore noon. Fresh veal for lunch, as good coming back up as going down. Reports of finger bones in the stew cannot be confirmed.
--------------------------------------
So there you have a first-hand account of life as it was in the Pilgrim days. Not exactly Colonial Williamsburg, was it? If I get enough positive feedback from this small sample I may just start a separate Web page for great-great-grandmother Hagridden's diary. All in favor say aye, aye, captain.

11-6-2001

Dear Aunt Nettie: 

Dang it Nettie, I used to be able to win a young girl's heart with a wink and a smile, and occasionally, 9 bucks.  Nowadays my teeth slip when I smile, and I'm living on a fixed income, and the only thing Viagra does is keep my toupee fixed upright. Is there a point where old age gets any better?

-- Sunk in Sunset City

Dear Sunk:

Oh, yes, there comes a point when you'll give up caring about the opposite species altogether and become more concerned with artificial sweeteners than sweet young artificers. Finally you'll reach the stage where you still look at the centerfolds in Playboy, but you no longer remember why. It's all downhill from there. 

I suggest needlepoint as a substitute for lost libido. You might even get good enough to win a prize with it, which is a lot more than you can do with the equipment you've got now....

11-7-2001

Dear Aunt Nettie: 

I really enjoy your explanations of the origins of words and phrases. One that's always puzzled me is "flabbergasted."   Where on earth did it come from? The dictionaries always say "origin unknown."

-- Astonished in Astoria

Dear Astonished:

Ah, how soon the world forgets. 

In 1879 the oil prospector Nehemiah Flabber came across a gas vent in a field just outside of the town of Elkblight in Nebraska. Back in those days gas vents were a telltale sign of potential underground oil reserves prized by the newfangled petroleum industry. Some prospectors even trained dogs-- known as gas hounds-- to sniff out gas leaks for them. Since the dogs inevitable sneezed explosively when they located a source of gas, it became a frontier joke to say "Gashounded!" whenever someone sneezed loudly. For some reason people think this expression originated in Germany, but it's as American as blue jeans and root beer.

Anyway, Nehemiah, who worked without a canine companion, came across this gas seep and was about to mark his map so as to stake a claim when the wind shifted a bit and he got a good noseful of the gas. To his amazement he was overcome with amazement, springing back several feet, landing sitting down with eyes as big as saucers and his jaw dropped open. 

Once again he carefully approached the vent, and again found himself flung backwards the same way. Obviously this was not your ordinary fuel gas. He touched a match to it but it refused to burn. His curiosity aroused, he pumped a quart or so of the stuff into an airtight bag, then went to the land office in Elkblight to stake his claim. After that he stopped in the local saloon, surreptitiously released some of the gas from the bag, and watched incredulously as several farmers jumped backwards, landing sitting down with a look of utter astonishment on their faces. He tried it again at the barber shop with identical results. After one or two more experiments he sent a telegram to the Johnson-Smith Novelties company in New York. A week later he was in their offices demonstrating the effects of the gas, and he walked away with a solid contract to supply "Flabber Gas" to them.

Well, Nehemiah sank a gas well and began sending tank cars of the stuff to the Johnson-Smith people, who featured it in their Gags & Pranks catalog and in their ads in magazines like "The Boy's Comic Magazine" and "Captain Billy's Whiz-Bang." The orders poured in, and soon Nehemiah was a very wealthy man and the expression "flabbergasted" had entered the American vocabulary to describe the abrupt amazement or surprise effected by the gas on an unsuspecting victim.

Alas, all good things come to an end. By 1888 the peculiar gas well had gone dry, and Flabber spent much of his fortune sinking wells to find more of it, all to no avail. By 1895 all that remained was that curious expression.

11-8-2001

Dear Aunt Nettie: 

I'm torn between violence and depravity. Which should it be?

-- Indecisive in Indianapolis

Dear Indecisive:

Always choose depravity when you're faced with a decision like this. It's more fun, there are no permanent scars involved as a rule, and they usually let you off with a fine. 

Plus with depravity there's always the possibility that you'll develop a lifelong relationship, which is very unlikely with violence.

11-9-2001

Dear Aunt Nettie: 

I recently heard some people referring to someone high on drugs as "baked." When did this curious phrase sneak into our vocabulary, and what do drugs have to do with bakery products?

-- Linguistic in Lingayen

Dear Linguistic:

Well, now, that's a curious story. The word isn't new by a long shot. It dates back to 1510, when there was a failure of the wheat crop and consequent shortage of flour throughout Europe. People began experimenting with other grains to bake their daily bread, among them poppies, darnel and rye. Poppies, of course, are the source of opium, and as luck would have it 1510 was a very wet year, which led to both darnel and rye being infected with fungi that produced hallucinogenic effects in humans. People ate the bread baked from these plants, and suddenly most of Europe was off on a magical mystery tour. 

Pope Julius II declared Wednesdays to be Guilt-free Sex days and prohibited the wearing of clothing in mild weather. The Holy Roman Empire declared war on itself, with great loss of life. Moldavia declared war on Massachusetts and sent 15,000 troops into the sea mounted on tricycles, all singing "99 Bottles of Ale on the Wall." The English Parliament advised King Henry VIII that henceforth all political debates in the House of Lords would be conducted on trampolines.

Worse yet were the effects on the peasantry. Choreomania, or the Dancing Madness, swept across entire villages, sending their inhabitants boogalooing down the roads in every direction. At one point the highway from Ghent to Aix was entirely filled with crowds doing their own interpretation of the Shag, the Suzi Q, the Get Down Truckin' and the Hokey Pokey. The great pilgrimage road to Santiago de Compostela in Spain was shut down for nonstop Paso Doble, Mambo, Cha-Cha, and Merengue contests. 

Eventually a decent wheat crop was harvested and people came to their senses, some of them finding themselves hundreds of leagues away from where they last enjoyed a poppy-seed roll, a darnel muffin or a corned beef on rye. Many bakers were banished, hanged or baked into a pie by infuriated consumers. Grain purity laws were passed, bakers were licensed, millers were made subject to Food & Drug Administration regulations, and a new word entered our language to describe toxication. 

11-10-2001

Dear Aunt Nettie: 

Okay, you're good with words. Why do they call socks and stockings and things like that "hose" or "hosiery"?

-- Baffled in Banff

Dear Baffled:

An excellent question. Many people assume that socks and stockings were knitted or woven the way they are today, but that's a fairly recent invention. Back in the Middle Ages legwear was manufactured and applied differently. Wool, linen, silk and cotton were mixed with a solvent and sprayed onto the wearer's lower body with a hose so that it bonded tightly to the body, as you can clearly see from medieval illustrations. Wealthier people had their own hosiers right in their castles, but the average person used to go to the local hosiery whenever he or she needed a change. Males needed a "cut piece" or "codpiece" in the front. Very often a tough batch of material would cause the hosier to apply a bit too much pressure with the razor and the purchaser would have a whole new career as an alto or soprano in the church choir.

11-11-2001

Dear Aunt Nettie: 

Do you suppose there's a tech support line for people who have received those fancy new artificial hearts?

-- Corazón in Coeur d'Alene

Dear Corazón:

As a matter of fact they're just setting up the first toll-free tech support lines to handle technical inquiries and do troubleshooting. "Spuds" Kerpoodle here at The Home got one of those newfangled AbioCor hearts implanted the other week and was one of the first to call their tech support people. Here's how it went:


"Good morning, AbioCor technical support, how may I assist you?"

"Uh.. yes.. I wanted to know why I no longer have a pulse since I had one of your hearts implanted."

"Okay, sir. Have you called AbioCor technical support before?"

"No"

"Well, let me get a little information about you for our records. Your name?"

"Spuds Kerpoodle. Spuds is a nickname. I think they have Ruprecht down in the records. That's my real name"

"And would you read me the serial number of your heart? It's on a small titanium panel on the back side.

"Uh... I don't think I can do that. It's sewn up inside my chest."

"Not a problem, sir, we can work around it. <pause> Okay, sir, your AbioCor technical support ID number is DP81418922. Please use this number the next time you call. Now, you say you do not have a pulse?"

"Yes, the nurse here at the home just tried to take my pulse and there was none. She got pretty spooked. I feel fine, though."

"Well, sir, that's what we call a feature, not a bug. Absence of a pulse is perfectly normal with an AbioCor brand artificial heart. It circulates your blood without that annoying thud-thud-thud you've probably grown accustomed to with your original equipment."

Oh, well, that's nice to know. Like I said, I feel fine, pulse or no pulse."

"It seems that your AbioCor brand artificial heart is working just fine. May I suggest you take a few minutes to read the manual? Most frequently-asked questions are covered in the manual."

"Well, I'll see if it's with the stuff they sent home with me from the hospital."

"Excellent idea. Now, is there anything else? Any other questions I can help you with?"

"Um... well, I was kind of wondering why the buzzing sound seems to stop for a second or two every now and then. "

"Aha! You may have one of the earlier models. There's a small software glitch in them that causes the heart to stop operating momentarily. AbioCor is aware of the problem and has created a software patch that will correct the problem. Would you like to install the upgrade? It will only take a few seconds."

"Well, sure, I guess...."

"Okay, sir, would you please hold the earpiece of your telephone against your chest, directly over your AbioCor brand artificial heart?"

"Okay. I'm doing it. "

<pause>

"There you go, sir. You're now running version 8.931.934 of the software. It will be necessary for you to restart your heart for the upgrade to take effect. This will happen automatically. I'll wait until it's up and running again."

"That's all that's to it, eh? Gee, ain't modern technolog--"

<long pause>

"Sir?"

<long pause>

"Sir?"

<longer pause>

"Sir? Did your heart restart? Sir?"

<very long pause, followed by sound of disconnect> 

Poor Spuds. I guess he suffered the same fate as all early adopters....

11-12-2001

Dear Aunt Nettie: 

When you triple crochet--do you double cast on the end or should you single?

-- Hooker in Hookeham

Dear Hooker:

It's been so long since I was on a pair of ice skates I honestly no longer remember. I never went in for the fancy stuff, anyway. A couple of figure-eights and some backward skating was all I could manage. 

The real ice artists back in Redbone were Lemuel Ganstermender and Tobias Goosepringle, who dazzled everyone with their fancy routines on Lake Redbone and later went on to capture trophies and medals in several state and national figure-skating categories. They were known as the "Gay Blades" back in those days, and would have easily taken the Ice Dancing Couples category in the Olympics if not for a technicality.

11-13-2001

Dear Aunt Nettie: 

My husband and I are looking for a vacation spot in the tropics but neither of us likes to fly and we both hate dealing with foreigners. Any suggestions?

-- Particular in Parsonsfield

Dear Particular:

Yes, you could hire an American-flag tramp steamer to drop you off at any one of thousands of uninhabited South Pacific islands. There you could enjoy two beautiful weeks in a completely foreigner-free tropical paradise as you struggle to find food, put together some kind of shelter and catch rainwater in leaves. If you brought along a video camera perhaps you could interest the networks in "Personal Survivor."

11-14-2001

Dear Aunt Nettie: 

I'm a sales manager and I'm looking for new ways to motivate my salespeople. How can I bond them to the company and to each other to improve retention and corporate loyalty?

-- Incenting in Inchcape

Dear Incenting:

You might try holding a weekend party for salespeople and their spouses and girlfriends/boyfriends at a local love motel. Make sure the bar is wide open, the pool is appropriate for skinny-dipping, room keys are assigned randomly and every suite has a video camera behind the one-way glass ceiling.

After they've spent the weekend bonding with each other you can use the videotapes to bond them to the company by threatening to sell their performances to the highest bidder on PornStar.Com if they so much as mention leaving. This also helps work up enthusiasm for the Christmas Party and the Company Picnic....

11-15-2001

Dear Aunt Nettie: 

Do you get a chance to go out to your local Starbucks there in Redbone? Don't you just love all the selections, the ambiance, the feeling that you're hobnobbing with the movers and shakers?

-- Caffeinated in Caffagglio

Dear Caffeinated:

What I long for sometimes is a simple 5¢ cup of coffee, like what Woolworth's used to serve in those heavy white cups and saucers, with genuine cream and honest-to-goodness sugar cubes instead of something whipped up from a chemistry set. You can keep your cappumochalattespressochinos. The high-test stuff would probably blow out my one remaining heart valve, and I refuse to pay that kind of money for java simply because it's been run through a steam engine. I couldn't tell the difference between Kano West Slope and Ethiopian Blue Mountain Reserve if you held a gun to my head, and I suspect nobody else can, either.

And since when did insufficient lighting become ambiance? We have a cellar in this place that's just as ambianced as all get-out. The rats like it that way. 

As for movers and shakers, most of the moving men I've known were dim-witted soulless brutes with wide shoulders, and the Shakers never established any communities this far south. Whoever you've been hobnobbing with is as phony as the overpriced coffee beans.

Now go to hell. I'm in grump mode today, although you could never tell it to hear me talk....

11-16-2001

Dear Aunt Nettie: 

I saw a news article someplace that said that tomato juice is more dangerous than cigarettes. Does this mean I should give up tomato juice? I sure can't give up the cigarettes.

-- Hooked in Hookstown

Dear Hooked:

Well, now, like most of the medical information in supermarket tabloids, you have to look at the source and the actual quotation to see how accurate it is. Here's the original story from the Dissociated Press:

-------------------------------
Executive Claims Tobacco No More Dangerous Than Tomato Juice 

Arguing that the causes of cancer are still being studied, a tobacco company executive testified in Miami on Tuesday that large quantities of tomato juice can produce the very same cancerous tumors on mice that tobacco does. The testimony by the president and chief executive officer of the Arab-American Tobacco Co. was read to the jury in a $5 billion secondhand smoke class-action lawsuit. 

"As a matter of fact," the executive said, "tomato juice is LOTS more dangerous. We took ordinary laboratory mice and force-fed each of them with 6 quarts of tomato juice, and do you know what happened? They EXPLODED! I want the record to show that there has never been a case of a smoker exploding, even 5-pack a day people. So there!"

©2001, The Dissociated Press
-------------------------------

So I think it's safe to say that tomato juice is nothing you have to worry about. At least for the remainder of your abbreviated life span....

11-17-2001

Dear Aunt Nettie: 

Should I upgrade to Windows XP?

--Hesitating in Harrisburg 

Dear Hesitating:

Well, the upside is that Microsoft XP (or "XPloitation") has finally broken the connection with DOS, just the way Windows 3, 95, 98, NT, ME, 2000 and all the others were supposed to. This time, as Bill Gates has said, "We may have actually gotten it right, and if we didn't, well, there's always XP SE to look forward to."

The downside is that installing XP (or "XPeriment") may require you to replace your entire computer system, the wiring in your house and the telephone lines from the central office to the jack where you plug in your modem. XP (or "XPropriation") will not work if you have more than 1.75 children in your household, if your last name has more than 9 letters, or if the air where the computer is located contains more than 0.0005% helium by volume.

XP (or "XPensive") automatically attaches your bank account so you can conveniently pay for the weekly patches and upgrades you'll need. It also sends all your personal information to the FBI and the Office of Homeland Security in the event you should choose not to install a recommended patch or upgrade.

XP (or "XPiation") comes in two versions, XP Home and XP Pro, the only difference between them being that XP Home is cheaper and that XP Pro actually works.

Most people who know about such things say that XP (or "XPletive deleted") is a giant step in the same place, and they recommend that you hold onto your copy of Win98 until the Microsoft Police pry it out of your cold, dead fingers.

11-18-2001

Dear Aunt Nettie: 

I've noted that as you grow older, that you grow hair in your ears. So what's up with that?

-- Hirsute in Hirshhorn

Dear Hirsute:

This is a form of psychological self-defense. Once people pass a certain age they tend to increasingly ignore the outside world and concentrate on themselves. Over tens of thousands of years evolution has supported this by assuring that our hearing progressively fails and that any tendency to listen is blocked by increasing hair growth. Also notice how elderly people's voices grow more shrill and irritating at the same time, so they're harder to disregard. Eventually they reach the ideal state, where they can hear no one and no one can ignore them. 

We have one old duffer here at Living Dead 'R' Us who hasn't heard a word anyone has said since 1987. He also keeps us entertained by telling the same two stories over and over again in a tone of voice that can peel paint. People often ask me how we can stand it. I tell them-- who listens?

11-19-2001

Dear Aunt Nettie: 

I love cats and I wish to celebrate and sing cats by putting out an album of songs in praise of cats. The only problem is that I can't seem to find any, other than that awful Broadway musical. Any suggestions?

-- Ailurophile in Aileen

Dear Ailurophile:

Oh, bosh! There are hundreds of cat appreciation songs around, many of which have been on the hit parade in years past. Why, I can think of three of them right off the top of my head:

1. "There Must be Fifty Ways to Feed Your Feline"

2. "I Could Have Brushed All Night" (from the musical "My Fur Lady")

3. "Bewitched, Bothered and Bewhiskered"

11-20-2001

Dear Aunt Nettie: 

What was the best time of your life? The '20s, '30s, '40s, '50s, '60s, '70s, '80s, '90s or right now?

-- Chronological in Chrysopolis

Dear Chronological:

Well, it might be best to work backwards on this one and strike out the eras that were bummers, as the young people say.

You can strike the 1930s, which was one long Depression.

Likewise the 1940s, which was one long war.

The 1950s were the rise of materialism in America, where we learned the price of everything and the value of nothing.

The 1960s got off to a good start, but after the Kennedy assassination and the morass of Vietnam the only good thing was the dope.

The 1970s? Think Richard Nixon, Jimmy Carter and disco. <shudder>

The 1980s gave us a Hollywood President and the Age of Greed.

The 1990s were spoiled by an unfinished war and Monica Lewinsky.

So far the 2000s have given us a questionable election and horrors enough for several lifetimes in New York and Washington.

No, I'd have to say that the 1920s were the best of times. Women got a chance to shed Victorian clothing and the Victorian role model, Prohibition led to the popularity of alcohol, jazz was the dominant musical format, the cars and roads got better, aviation opened up brand new career paths for tens of thousands, we were between wars, radio became popular, sound made movies even better-- yeah, those were truly the good old days....

11-21-2001

Dear Aunt Nettie: 

I was reading "A Pair for All Seasons," Imelda Marcos's autobiography of her and her husband's years as the dictators of the Philippines. It got me to wondering-- who invented shoes in the first place?

-- Sole Survivor in Soledad

Dear Sole:

As nearly as anyone can tell, shoes were invented a hundred thousand years ago when humans moved out of the nice soft grasslands of Africa into rocky places that were filled with cactuses and serpents and large quantities of broken crockery of the type that archaeological digs are constantly turning up. The first shoes were based on the hoof of the horse, but this required good balance and an extra set of legs to use properly. Next came large bundles of reeds that were used to cushion the feet, but these tended to fall apart after several paces, and severely limited the outmigration. Had proper footwear been available Europe would have been settled around 80,000 BC, and America would have been discovered the following year.

For a while flat stones were tried, which lasted a long time but were so uncomfortable and unstylish that women would have nothing to do with them. Hunters also noticed how difficult it was to sneak up on animals when you sounded like a tap dance revue.

One day on the blazing, rocky, cactus-strewn and crockery-littered plains of Scythia a hunter who had killed a pair of lizards was driven to the point of sacrificing his kill to protect his poor tortured feet. He slipped a gutted lizard carcass on each foot, and lo and behold discovered footgear that was cool, flexible, long-lasting and came in a variety of styles and colors. He gave up hunting and became the first shoemaker, and prospered mightily.

Soon others tried to improve on the basic lizard model. The strapless hedgehog provided great traction on ice, woodchuck pumps kept the feet cozy in wintertime and came with matching loincloth and cape, and the skunk was perfect for formal occasions, depending on the wind direction. Alas, they were stumped when it came to using other, more durable animals. Goats and antelopes were ideal, but even the smallest ones weighed so much that it made outrunning a sabretooth all but impossible. And of course the mammoth was out of the question, even when "community jumps" were tried. It was only much later that it dawned on some bulging-browed genius that it wasn't necessary to use the entire animal, only the skin, which led to the Great Age of Footwear. 

The downside, of course, was the presence of mighty herds of peeled cattle, horses and buffalo, which kept early communities awake all night with their protracted screaming. Thousands of years later someone discovered that the peeled animals were edible, which ended the screaming problem and improved nutrition considerably. Later it was observed that unpeeled horses were lots easier to ride, which was another great leap for mankind.

11-22-2001

Dear Aunt Nettie: 

On this, our unique national holiday, can you tell us the story of why Benjamin Franklin wanted the wild turkey to be the national symbol of America instead of the soaring, majestic bald eagle?

-- Hawkeye in Hawksmoor

Dear Hawkeye:

Old Benny researched this pretty carefully. He studied the bald eagle's habits and personality and apparently didn't like what he saw. The eagle was a scavenger, preferring to dine on putrefying carrion than do his own hunting like more industrious birds. He had slovenly personal habits, cheated on his mate and roughed up his offspring. He tended to be the neighborhood bully, scarfing down other birds' eggs and stealing their hard-earned carrion. His very shape flying overhead was enough to send innocent flocks of chickens into pandemonium and hysteria, which led to many lawsuits.

The final blow came when Franklin was standing beneath a tree where there was an eagle's nest, just observing for all he was worth. The eagle picked that moment to upchuck, and Benny found himself suddenly awash in purée of week-old salmon guts. He had to burn his clothes on the spot, and caused quite a stir when he returned home dressed only in corn shucks.

Now the wild turkey, that was a bird of a different temperament altogether. Socially adept, gregarious, always gainfully employed, faithful to their spouses, kind to their children, supportive to their neighbors, dedicated to the proposition that all birds are created equal, the turkey seemed like the ideal role model for our budding nation. It looked simply smashing on a bottle of premium bourbon, too, whereas the eagle looked like it was spoiling for a bar fight.

The only thing that changed his mind were the sketches that Betsy Ross whipped up when she was bidding for the uniform, symbol, patch, badge and icon franchise for the young Republic. Even Franklin had to admit that the proposed Great Seal with a turkey holding a cluster of arrows and an olive branch looked dumb, dumb, dumb, and the recruiting posters for the Screaming Turkeys looked even worse. 

That, plus the fact that eagles tasted horrible as the centerpiece of a Thanksgiving feast, forced him to come around, which is why we have the eagle on the money and the turkey on the table on this holiday.

11-23-2001

Dear Aunt Nettie: 

What is a sig file? People keep telling me I need to put one into my e-mail.

-- Adolf in Adolph

Dear Adolf: 

I believe your hearing is failing as well as your moral principles. No doubt your supremacist friends have been urging you to add a "Seig Heil" to all your correspondence to inflame and agitate the downtrodden. The less said about that the better. We have certain standards to maintain in this column, after all.

11-24-2001

Dear Aunt Nettie:

I live in a retirement community in the southwest. We have recently been the victims of a graffiti vandal and are wondering how we might go about finding the culprit. Have you ever had to deal with a graffiti vandal at Living Dead "R" Us? If so, how did you catch the vandal?

--Sullied in Sun City 

Dear Sullied:

Fortunately not even the lowest of the low is low enough to try to graffitize our humble abode. I believe they still remember what happened to the burglar who managed to get in here a dozen years ago. We didn't turn him in-- we kept him. He is the most broken 32-year-old you will ever meet after a steady diet of taste-free gruel, bad TV and conversations on topics half a century older than he is.

However, to address your problem, I suggest a thin coating of wax applied to the face of your buildings. Imagine the frustration of those vandals when their artwork slides to the ground in a puddle as soon as the desert sun hits it in the morning. 

11-25-2001

Dear Aunt Nettie: 

Last year you had some great suggestions for dealing with Thanksgiving leftovers. I seem to have misplaced the article. Would you run it again?

-- Homemaker in Homestead

Dear Homemaker:

I'd be happy to. Heloise, eat your heart out.
-------------------------

11-26-2001

Dear Aunt Nettie: 

I believe that woodchucks are the worst pestilence a gardener has to endure. Is there any way of dealing with these persistent vermin?

-- Vexed in Vexin

Dear Vexed:

Plain old woodchucks are indeed a cross for a gardener to bear, but Redbone had a far worse version of the varmints: fulminating woodchucks. 

You see, the Redbone variety lived in burrows that were rich with rock niter, better known as potassium nitrate to chemical folks. The beasts also had a sweet tooth, which they satisfied by raiding the molasses storehouses as often as they could. Molasses is particularly rich in sulphur, one of the basic nutritional building blocks. The sulphur, however, gave them gas pains, which they relieved by gnawing charcoal from various sources. Can you see the implications here?

That's right, the little beggars flourished in an environment that was made up of the ingredients for gunpowder!

The consequences of this were not immediately apparent. However, in May of 1837 Casper Gasparovich, an immigrant hop-farmer, took a potshot at a woodchuck that was harassing his hopyard. Imagine his surprise when the musket ball found its target and a violent explosion ensued, leaving behind a 2-foot-deep crater, a wrecked hop frame, and a thin rain of minced, smoked woodchuck.

Worse things were in store. On July 4th of the same year, 15-year-old Jimmy Buttforth, full of high spirits and sarsaparilla, dropped a firecracker down a chuckhole in the family's back yard. Little did he know of the connecting chain of burrows under the earth, or the enormous population of fulminating woodchucks who lived therein. By the time the last fragment of woodchuck had spattered to earth the farm was in ruins, and Jimmy, who was located 2 days later in the top of a chestnut tree, was never the same again. As soon as he reached adulthood he moved to the polar icecap, where he felt he could be safe from subterranean suicide bombers. Alas, he died of fright one day soon afterward when a seal popped up through a hole in the ice next to where he was standing. 

Winter weather brought a new danger. The very dry air created static electricity, which caused the woodchucks to detonate spontaneously as they slithered through their burrows looking for molasses and charcoal. This inevitably led to a chain reaction, with younger, lighter woodchuck infants raining out of the sky like cluster bomblets. Marston Swackhammer sneezed in his root cellar, frightening a hidden woodchuck into his hole at static-inducing speeds. They never found enough of Marston to bury, and a full week later his iron bedstead fell from a clear sky in Muscatine, Iowa, narrowly missing a church.

Finally the good folks of Redbone realized that their lives hung by a thread unless they could rid the landscape of all fulminating woodchucks. With the cooperation of the military they stuffed a grenade into every chuckhole they could find, then set them all off at once on the memorable afternoon of March 2nd, 1838, with the entire population of Redbone watching from the bluffs above the town. The carnage was frightful, and for weeks afterward a mist of decomposed woodchuck pervaded the town, or what was left of it. But from that time to this, there has never been a woodchuck problem in Redbone.

11-27-2001

Dear Aunt Nettie: 

Is there a polite way to tell the religious people who come to your door to go away? Our apartment complex seems to get them all. I know they mean well, but on more than one occasion I've been tempted to smite them.

-- Tolerant in Toledo

Dear Tolerant:

It's a cross you'll have to bear, I'm afraid. Be thankful that you don't get some of the odder cults like we used to get in Redbone years ago. My favorites were the Mennenites, who went door to door trying to convince people that Skin Bracer aftershave was the one true link to Paradise in the afterlife. They were never very successful, and one evening they were set upon and stoned to death by the acolytes of Williams Lectric Shave, which believed that pre-application was the key to salvation.

But the weirdest religious group I've ever run across was home grown. Elron Huppert was a newspaper reporter with the Daily Erstwhile/ Evening Ersatz family of papers over in Hogsbreath, but he lived in Redbone for the ambiance, as he put it. Hogsbreath was in a dry county, you see, and Redbone wasn't, so Elron could soak up all the ambiance he could hold in Redbone's gin mills every night.

Elron fancied himself a "scientific fiction" author as the genre was called in those days, and sent in hundreds of manuscripts to the penny-a-word pulp magazines like Amazing Monster Tales and Thrilling Fabulous Wonder Fiction, all to no avail. He also tried to break into the Collier's and Saturday Evening Post fiction sections with similar lack of luck.

One day when he was covering for the Daily Erstwhile's religion columnist and suffering from the effects of far too much ambiance the night before, he accidentally slipped a chapter of the story he was working on into the copyboy's basket. The story was called "The Gorgeous Gams of the Genesis Girls," and involved an alien plot to subdue our fair planet by sending pin-up quality proselytizers to Earth to seduce the heads of all major religions. Somehow that chapter, entitled "Bedroom Confessions" got printed as the religion column that week, and Huppert was astounded to see the amount of mail he received asking for more information on the subject. 

Never one to miss an opportunity, Elron soon set up the Church of Seductology, recruited comely young things to go door to door in skimpy negligees hawking the sect's acts, and published the only church bulletin in America with a centerfold. His book, "Dying Ethics" was on bestseller charts for months. When Hugh Heffner was converted, quickly rising to the post of Arch Bishop after changing the name of his magazine to Prayboy, Huppert knew he had it made.

After several years the Catholic Church became aware of the competition and bought Huppert out for an undisclosed, but reportedly sizeable, sum. He retired to a mansion in Redbone Heights, where he opened a string of high-class bordellos that made no pretense of religious respectability.

11-28-2001

Dear Aunt Nettie: 

I've been waiting for you to address the issue of Menopause. You DO remember Menopause, don't you?

-- Flash in Flanders

Dear Flash:

Not really. All those punk bands sounded alike to me.

11-29-2001

Dear Aunt Nettie: 

Growing up as you did in the bucolic isolation of the Ozarks, I trust that as a young maiden you were never treated to the magnificence of grand opera. But surely you must now be making up for this gap in your exposure to the civilized world through recordings, are you not? Which is your favorite opera, and your favorite performer?

-- Tenor in Tennessee

Dear Tenor:

Quite frankly there are two forms of entertainment that stick in my craw. One of them is rap and the other is your grand opera. The only advantage the latter has over the former is that any swear words are in another language.

And I take umbrage at your assumption that we had no exposure to the niceties of the musical arts here in our little corner of the world. As a matter of fact one of the world's greatest unknown opera composers, Richard Wagonner, lived in Redbone for quite a spell, and completed his finest work, "Die Fluffernutter," when he was living in a room above Rance Spoonjabber's general store and making a few bucks a week as a backup stockboy.

I'm sure you're familiar with the work, but I'll outline it for the benefit of others who may not be aware of Waggoner's masterpiece.

Although it was written in German, "Die Fluffernutter" is set in downtown Pittsburgh in the 19th century, alongside a German neighborhood just to make the nitpickers feel better. The hero, Edelweiss, operates a cash-and-carry rye bread store which is facing competition from a much larger rye bread franchise, and he despairs of surviving the summer in his opening song, "Summertime (und die leavening ain't easy)" which records his frustrations with keeping yeast fresh when the temperature is above 99° Fahrenheit (37.2222° Celsius).

As his song ends Dodie Frump enters the store on an F# note which in opera indicates "Hey, everybody, a hidden love interest! Woo! Woo!" She and Edelweiss dance a pas de deux until the stage manager reminds them that this is an opera, not a ballet. 

In the second act Dodie suggests that Edelweiss's store could be saved if he were to come up with a marketing differentiator that would set his enterprise apart from Ryebrot "R" Uns, his mega-competitor. They sing the duet "Anyway You Slice It," but not very well, as they are both pretty winded from the pas de deux. Dodie suggests offering a free jar of either peanut butter or marshmallow fluff with each loaf of bread that Edelweiss sells as a sort of loss leader sales incentive. They sing the duet "Jump Down, Spin Around, Make Yourself a Sandwich," to the assembled townspeople, all of whom are wearing steel brassieres and carrying spears as Pittsburgh peasants liked to do in those days.

The third act starts off with a disaster: an earthquake strikes just as Edelweiss is about to kick off his marketing promotion. The peanut butter and marshmallow fluff jars topple off the shelves and are inextricably mingled. In despair Edelweiss sings "Stuck on You" about his plight, until Dodie points out that the mixture isn't half bad on rye bread, if you overlook the glass chunks. They sing the duet "Smooth, Sweet and Crunchy, Too!" as the paramedics remove Edelweiss's leg, which had been crushed by a falling bread slicer.

Act IV is the dénouement, or "windup" as they call it in opera terms. Dodie sells the peanut butter/marshmallow fluff secret recipe to the marketing director of Ryebrot "R" Uns for a nice chunk of change and elopes with a vendor of pornographic postcards. Edelweiss, in despair, sings the aria "How's I Gwine Get Off Now Ma Ho' Is Gone." He then goes to dental college and cleans up by fixing the teeth of all the youngsters who have become addicted to peanut butter and marshmallow fluff sandwiches. He charges extra for Novocain. Most parents prefer to leave and come back later to save the money.

Curtain.

So there, Mister Opera Snob, put that in your pipe and smoke it! And if you want a second helping, I've got Moe Zart's "The Magic Steam Calliope" as a backup. Now there was a composer and heavy equipment mechanic for you!

11-30-2001

Dear Aunt Nettie: 

Why is it that after a long session staring into the monitor of my computer I find my thoughts becoming congested? I seem to be unable to focus on more than one thing at a time.

-- Incapacitated in Inchcape

Dear Incapacitated:

This is a common problem with people who use computers a lot. It's technically referred to as "carpal tunnel vision." The best thing to do is exercise your eyes frequently. In severe cases you may have to wear a mind support at work. Try support hose worn over the head. If that doesn't solve your concentration problems you can always rob a bank.

MUSEUM OF
DEPRESSIONIST ART

GALLERY OF
THE UNIDENTIFIABLE