The management and surviving operating staff of the Greater Redbone Electrical & Telegraph Company ("Power is Money!") wish to abjectly apologize for yesterday's little snafu during the inauguration of the new used dynamo. After the company hymn was sung by the CEO's daughter Esmerelda and the company colors were run up the flagpole for a touching salute, the CFO's youthful-looking bride of 35 years was to have thrown the ceremonial switch to start up the generator and put it on line to relieve the distress of our long-suffering and heroic people of Redbone and surrounding neighborhoods.

The ornamental switch that was to be thrown was the very same massive, two-pole, all-copper knife switch that was formerly used to send miscreants to their doom at the Arkansas State Penitentiary's Death Row, known as "The Blue with Buff Trim and Aqua Highlights Mile." Our COO collects little electrical gadgets like that, and we were pleased as punch that he let us use it for the ceremony. It was a truly impressive sight there behind the executive dais, its copper polished to a fare-thee-well and the mahogany of its insulating handle and base aglow with many lovingly-applied coats of spit-polished carnauba wax.

Alas, the senior workers who had been polishing the switch under direct orders from the COB would have better spent their time reviewing the handiwork of their underlings. As it happened, a junior assistant wiree transposed a pole junction, a monumental error which was overlooked until the last moment by our exhausted and spitless senior engineers, and when Grand Master Pole-volter Throckmorton P. Edison noticed with horror the inverted polarity of the nexus grid, it was too late. You will all be pleased to note that Mr. Edison will be buried with full corporate honors and a bronze oak leaf cluster in recognition of his heroic effort to prevent the circuit from being closed by interspersing his own body between the knife switch and the contact. His elegant silk Armani suit, soaked with fear-sweat, proved the perfect conductor, however, and he was "fried, dyed and laid to the side," as our former company barber and bootblack Rastus Fishbone would have put it.

The closing of the inverted pole junction connection caused the new used generator to malfunction on a truly awe-inspiring scale. Rather than pumping life-giving fresh crisp new energy to our loyal clientele, it actually began sucking electricity in from the main power grid in Little Rock. Our engineers estimate that it sucked up close to 40 gigavolts before she let rip like a stick of dynamite shoved up an obese woodchuck.

Well, the upshot is that we no longer have our new used generator, nor our generating plant, nor a COB, CEO, CFO nor any of the other capital Cs that made our life at the Greater Redbone Electrical & Telegraph Company like one big happy, albeit oppressed and dysfunctional, family. We have heard reports that a rain of molten solder reached as far as the town of Underslung, where it wreaked indescribable havoc at a charity picnic for orphans. A chunk of casing nearly brought down a passing airliner, and a Mrs. Emma Sophranabula Winklepin of Tommyrot claims that her old wringer washing machine chased her three times around the barn until her husband was able to subdue it with a caulking maul.

We of the Greater Redbone Electrical & Telegraph Company ("Shockingly Efficient!") would like to express our deepest and most sincere apologies for the death, dispossession, mutilation and mayhem our little oversight has caused. We would like to furthermore assure everyone that the survivors who can still get around are hard at work on the original problem of restoring power to you, our fine customers.
--------- 

Note: the McGillicudy Family Funeral Home would like all citizens to keep searching for the head of the CFO's wife Myrtle, as a closed coffin is the only practical alternative. Thank you for caring.

9-3-2002

TENNESSEE VALLEY AUTHORITY
EMERGENCY ELECTRICAL STRIKE TASK CORPS 

To: The Citizens of Redbone, Arkansas 
From: Major General Phileas T. Abercrombie, TVA-EESTC 

Be it known to all citizens that Redbone and its environs are now in a state of MARTIAL LAW in response to the sudden and unprovoked attack by the Greater Redbone Electrical & Telegraph Company on the TVA electrical grid based in Little Rock, and the subsequent launch of an attack by nefarious hands upon neighboring communities and their inhabitants.

The TVA-EESTC has sent troops in to secure the site of the former GRE&TC generating station, now known as the "Forward Crater." Remaining executives, middle managers and senior engineers put up a brief resistance, which has been quelled with substantial casualties on the part of the enemy. Common employees are being held as prisoners of war according to the Geneva Convention in an undisclosed location.

Emergency crews will be arriving shortly with a replacement generator, cables and a full staff of interim military electrical generating plant personnel. The Red Cross is following with temporary shelters, field kitchens and MASH units.

ALL NON-ESSENTIAL PERSONNEL ARE ADVISED TO REMAIN INDOORS UNTIL THE AREA IS SECURED AND CLEARED AND POWER IS RESTORED. A 24-HOUR CURFEW IS IN FORCE, EFFECTIVE IMMEDIATELY. LOOTERS, CLASS-ACTION ATTORNEYS AND MEMBERS OF THE NEWS MEDIA, ESPECIALLY CNN, WILL BE SHOT ON SIGHT. 

9-7-2002

 Okay, okay, I’m back, thanks to the good offices of my great-something nephew Gizmo and the Tennessee Valley Authority Emergency Electrical Strike Task Corps.

However, with all my hardware fried, up to and including my backups, I have lost my entire reserve of questions to answer. If you've sent any in over the last 6 weeks, please send them again.

What a mess.

Remind me to tell you all about it someday when I have sufficient Oxycontin to do so without losing control.... 

9-8-2002

Dear Aunt Nettie: 

So how’s the new computer? Fast enough for you?

--Nouvelle in Nouy

Dear Nouvelle:

It's a pure caution. Someday I'm really going to have to break down and ask Gizmo what he does for a living out there in New Mexico. That "Roswell" name rings a bell, but I can't recall why....

He's always accompanied by two bulky gentlemen with dark glasses and hearing aids. At first I though he worked with the handicapped, and this was kind of job training for them, but they move too quickly for that. Plus there was that time when one of the aides came on a tad belligerent and tried to push his way into the room when they were here. I've never seen a human being reduced to a cubic foot of ugly so fast.

Anyway, Gizmo rigged up the new hardware and software, although I can't honestly tell you what the brand is, since nothing has any trademarks on it. No knobs or switches, either, for that matter. It starts up when I want it to, and there's none of this keyboard or mouse nonsense, either. It just prints out what I want to say before I say it, which is a great help to an old lady in somewhat desperate physical straits. I don't have to connect to the Internet, -- it's just there whenever I want it. Come to think of it, there are no connections at all, not even a power cord.

Now, see, this is the really nice thing about it-- just as I was wondering if it needed batteries a little robot-looking thingy popped up on the screen and said that batteries are unnecessary, that it runs on "sideline³² power," whatever that is. 

The screen is something else again. It stretches, so if I want to see a bigger picture I just tug at one of the corners and it expands. Just as an experiment I opened it up as big as one of the walls, which was a hoot when I thought up a nice wintertime outside view. Just like having a picture window at the North Pole. (At least one of our residents is on the wagon for good now after passing by at the wrong moment.) Oh, and if you bend the screen a bit you can see *around* things, which is handy. 

I really think Gizmo should go to work for Bill Gates or somebody. He has so much talent going to waste. About half an hour after he left he called me from New Mexico to see how I liked it and if I had any questions. That is to say, he didn't "call" as in making a telephone call, he just popped up on the screen. At least I assume he was in New Mexico... I could see the red sand and orange sky outside the window of his office. That IS New Mexico, isn't it? 

Isn't it...?

9-9-2002

Dear Aunt Nettie: 

I was in a butcher shop this morning, a pork store to be exact. They were having a sale on pig's feet. Nettie, can you explain to me what would possess a person to consume the hooves of an animal that is renowned for dirtiness and which spends its days wading with those selfsame feet through all manner of filth and offal?

-- Fastidious in Fatehpur 

Dear Fastidious: 

I honestly don't know, but I think you've put me off sausage forever.... <shudder!>

9-10-2002

Dear Aunt Nettie: 

I wish to enlist your support for a moral crusade I am undertaking against the vile television program, "The Sopranos." Not only is it a slight against all Italian-Americans, but the language, the gratuitous nudity, and the callous amorality, the murders, mutilations and mayhem make it unfit fare for any self-respecting human being. I trust I can count on your support.

-- Upstanding in Upperville

Dear Upstanding:

I not only share your enthusiasm for the program, but I think Tony's mother Livia is a role model for old people everywhere. Such mischief, such manipulation, such flat-out malevolence shows the diabolical depths that old women can rise to if they set their minds to it and persevere. It sometimes makes me wish I had had children....

9-11-2002

Dear Aunt Nettie: 

How to you plan to spend today, in silent memory and reflection, or will you participate in a local memorial event?

-- Remorseful in Remoulins

Dear Remorseful:

I am planning to avoid television, radio and the print media, and play deaf and foolish if The Home here sends around any community service do-gooders or brainwashed schoolchildren to sing or put on skits. Enough is enough. If I never see another blind, wheelchair-bound African-American victim of Down Syndrome dressed in a flag and lip-synching the "Star-Spangled Banner" it will be just fine with me.

The only remembrance ceremony should be based on our response to Pearl Harbor. Nobody put on a minstrel show, we just firebombed Tokyo and introduced the a-bomb as payback. All this other stuff is just a PITA, and I don't mean that middle-eastern bread, either....

9-12-2002

Dear Aunt Nettie: 

Well?

-- Impatient in Impington

Dear Impatient:

Well, I suppose I should.... <sigh!> 

It was a dark and stormy night, 27th August, as I recall, year of Our Lord Two Thousand and Two. We were running sharp afore a 13-knot breeze, edging the Westerlies, and the First Mate had just sent a crew up the ratlines to unfurl the spinnaker and foretop gallant when....

No, wait, I'm sorry-- that's when I stowed away on the "Mary Celeste." Now THAT was a sea story, let me tell you.

However, it WAS a dark and stormy night on August 27th last. We had finished our dinnertime gruel and the head jailor had just sent a crew up the ratlines to turn down the beds. I was sitting at my trusty computer as lightning flashed without, secure in the knowledge that my uninterruptible power supply, my power and phone line surge protectors and my indomitable will of steel made me impervious to the elements. I was just about to compose my eventide missive when the loudest noise I have ever heard since the old Wheatwhistle tinsel mine blew up in '24 shook the very foundations of Living Dead "R" Us and plunged everything into stygian gloom.

Except for the screen of my monitor, which turned the shade of a Microsoft death screen, melted its glass face and expectorated a ball of blue lightning almost into my lap as I frantically backpedaled away. From the sizzles and screams in the hall I knew that the other computers here had been likewise affected, especially the surly one in accounting. By sheer luck the ball lightning in my room was deflected by the bedpost and bounced out the door of my room, where it joined its fellows in a macabre game of plasma tag. Whoever got tagged "it" exploded in a shower of fire and brimstone which the battery-powered smoke alarms were no match for, and they too gave up the ghost in flashes of ozone and radioactive cesium smoke.

At this moment Charlie Soddenburst, LDRU's champion complainer, toddled from his room primed and cocked to hurl invectives at all and sundry about the noise and the darkness. He made the mistake of resting his hand on a well-grounded railing, and the last thing anyone saw of Charlie was a loud, gooey *bang!* with a surprised expression on its face. Charlie had spent his whole life as a butler to various wealthy folks, and all I could think to say to mark his passing was, "well done, good and faithful servant." Except in this case "well-done" would have been more appropriate.

The various other lightning balls grounded themselves out of existence against metal objects and we were soon left in pitch darkness, as the emergency lighting had gone the way of the smoke alarms, both a tribute to the building owners' long-standing tradition of buying defective merchandise on the cheap. So pandemonium raged indoors as well as out. I could see from the absence of street lights that this was no mere building strike. As that great hard-boiled detective Philip Marlowe might have said, it was like a big pool of darkness had opened up and we had jumped right in....

(to be continued)

9-13-2002

... so anyway, there we were, blacked out on one of the hottest nights of the year, and of course Living Dead "R" Us is sealed up tighter than a nun's hope chest, so in half an hour you could have fried eggs on a bedpan-- assuming you could find either eggs or bedpan in the gloom. Somebody had the bright idea of opening the front and back doors to bring in a breeze, but all that came inside were about half-a-million mosquitoes who were direct descendants of Count Dracula. We were not happy campers.

Although we were forced to become unhappy ones as the local rescue squad lugged us part and parcel to the parking lot, where some kindly souls had set up a tent that had last seen service during the Bataan Death March and hadn't been aired out since. The smell did nothing to impair the mosquitoes, who apparently were used to the bouquet of old coffins, given their ancestry and all. Someone lit candles, a big mistake, as it only allowed us to see exactly how wretched we all looked, covered in sweat and welts and bruises from where they had dropped the stretchers.

At some point before dawn a Greater Redbone Electrical & Telegraph Company representative came through the streets with a truck and loudspeaker to advise everyone that they had the situation well in hand. From what we learned later, that wasn't all they had in hand that night.

Around daybreak the Red Cross showed up, which made LDRU look sort of like those scenes they showed of Bosnia during one of the recent wars. At least the oatmeal was good. Or I assume it was, because by the time they got to me with it I had hit on the paramedics for enough morphine to make a cinder block tasty. Then it was full day, and the sun turned the tent into one of those waterless cookers you see advertised on late-night TV. Seems the water had given out when the generators at the pumping plant dies from lack of diesel fuel, which of course couldn't be replenished since the gas station pumps were all dead.

Just as we thought things couldn't get any worse, they promptly did.

(to be continued)

9-14-2002

... I suppose you can fill in the rest of the whole sad tale from the Greater Redbone Electrical & Telegraph Company's postings and the subsequent invasion by the Tennessee Valley Authority's Emergency Electrical Strike Task Corps, who ran the GRE&T beggars out of town and declared martial law after the riots that followed the restoration of power. I myself participated in no riots, being just as thankful as all get-out to return to my humble cell, crank up the A/C and log on to the Internet.

Of course the latter step was somewhat defeated when I saw that my computer was a pile of slag loosely held together with melted plastic. The UPS had done its best, but nothing can stand up to a direct lightning strike. We had the remains of the UPS buried with full honors the next day in the "Rose Garden"-- aka the bramble patch the owners here at Living Dead "R" Us renamed to save the expense of cleaning out.

Special thanks to my great-great-grandnephew Gizmo for installing the new machine, which I still haven't gotten quite figured out yet. I'm used to downloading in software, but it's a bit strange for the entire box with disks, manuals, etc., to materialize in front of the "tele" port, which I believe is somewhat unorthodox hardware. It appears to work in reverse as well. At any rate a teacup, saucer, institutional grade teaspoon and six ounces of Earl Grey lightly-steeped tea with cheap non-dairy creamer and synthetic sweetener is now somewhere in the vicinity of Arcturus....

9-15-2002

Dear Aunt Nettie: 

Have you ever noticed the similarity between the words "amulet" and "omelet"? What's the connection here?

-- Ovoid in Overbeck 

Dear Ovoid:

It's quite a story, really. You see, back in ancient times the egg was revered as a symbol of life. When Christianity swiped the old pagan Œstre spring festival for its own, it retained the egg symbolism, which is why kids color Easter eggs to celebrate it these days.

Eggs were considered to be powerful tools in the hands of sorcerers and sorceresses. We still use the expression to "egg someone on," little realizing that it was originally an invocation to cast some malefic doom upon an unsuspecting churl, which sorcerpeople did almost without thinking about it, like if dinner was late or someone forgot to replace the toilet paper in the cess-house.

Peasants in those days were a miserable, superstitious lot, and would often hie themselves to a witch or enchanter for an amulet to protect them from the plague, or the Vikings, or the heartbreak of psoriasis. Eggs were an essential ingredient in these protective spells.

Alas, eggs in their natural state are fragile and perishable. Oftentimes a peasant would shell out hard coin for the latest protective spell or spell upgrade, to be worn on a thong around the neck, then the very next day the snath of his scythe might bust it all to flinders, and the peasant would be in a snit, having lost his money, his protection and his best shirt in one fell swoop. 

Worse yet, if he managed to avoid breaking the egg, it would still last but a few days or at the most a week before going over, being as it was in contact with industrial-strength peasant sweat day in and day out. Then the peasant would have to endure comic remarks whenever he entered a room. Anglo-Saxon is a language particularly rich in insults and general coarseness, so the possessor of an egg amulet long past its sell-by date might be greeted with uproarious cries of "Whoyse hath cutte the cheyse?" and "Thalt been a-sleep in thy dungge-pitte, hey noddy noddy?" when he dropped into the local pub to swill some wretched spoilt beer.

French sorcerers (known as "sorciers" because the French just have to be different) solved both the breakability and the putrifactibility problems in one go. In 934 a powerful sorcier named Henri Pottier while at a training school named Pets-de-Cochon created an amulet using several fresh eggs, a bit of milk, and a bouquet des fine-herbes with just a touch of hellbore for authority. He quite by accident spilled this mixture onto the steel cuirass of an extinct knight which he was using as a stove since the autumn was nippy that year. Imagine his surprise when the amulet toasted itself into what later became known as vulcanized rubber! 

Impervious to heat, cold, impact, abrasion and the gnawing ravages of time, this new amulet (called an "omelet" because the French just have to be different) ultimately destroyed the sorcery industry since it never needed replacing and thus ruined a perfectly good cash cow. However, it did wonders for the tourist industry in France, since English tourists could be served vulcanized rubber at mealtimes and not dare complain for fear of being snooted to death by waiters specially hired and trained for the purpose.

And that is the connection between "amulet" and "omelet." Surprised? We certainly are....

------ 
References:
"Conjures, Spells and Divers Enchantments" American Egg Council promotional brochure, 1957 
"The Art of French Cuisine" par B.F. Goodrich (Londres et Mumbai, 1901)

9-16-2002

Dear Aunt Nettie: 

If you could travel to any place in the world, where would you go?

-- Vagabond in Vaduz

Dear Vagabond:

Djibouti. 

Oh, I know what you're going to say: Why would anyone want to visit this tiny enclave on the Gulf of Aden, whose climate has been described as "waterless and furnace-like" and whose chief tourist attraction is its high infant mortality rate? 

I was persuaded by an article in Martha Stewart's "Surviving" magazine, which I quote in part:

So that's why I have a burning desire to visit Djibouti. Or it may just be a bladder infection from the catheter again....

9-17-2002

Dear Aunt Nettie: 

I got a Languige Arts home-work assinement. I have to use the words "antlers" "plastique" and "pancreas" in a 1 paragraf story. I don't even know what them words mean. Some kids that used to be at this scool said that you did homework assinements for nothing. If that is true, please do this one and send it to me rite away.

-- Dim in Dimona 

Dear Dim:

Oh, we can do LOTS better than that. If they ask for language arts, they'll be plumb bowled over if you put a little artsy spin on the language and a little languagey spin of the art. Let's see... 

How about this?

There you go! Note the usefulness of this simple paragraph, which you can turn in for Art, Geography and History as well as Language Arts. I'm sure you'll be called to the office for extra credit after you turn this one in....

9-18-2002

Dear Aunt Nettie: 

Would you describe yourself as superstitious?

--Cautious in Caulfield

Dear Cautious:

Not at all. I firmly believe that superstition brings bad luck.

9-19-2002

Dear Aunt Nettie: 

My new girl friend is nuts about those 1930s Fred Astaire and Ginger Rogers movies. Every night practically we have to watch one. I keep telling her that life wasn't really like that back in the '30s, that everybody was miserable because of the Great Depression, and anyway, nobody wore tuxedos all the time and danced whenever they needed a break in the action. I know she reads your column every day. Would you set her straight about what life back then was like?

-- Frustrated in Franconia Notch 

Dear Frustrated:

I'm afraid it's you who needs to be set straight, young man. Your entire picture of the 1930s has been shaped by books like "You Have Seen Their Faces" and "Now Let Us Praise Famous Men" and those breadline photos of Dorothea Lange, not to mention movies like "The Grapes of Wrath."

The truth is that we *did* spontaneously burst into song at the oddest moments, and all boys treasured the tuxedoes and tap shoes they received on their 16th birthday, when the girls got their first cocktail gown and high heels. After that life was just a dizzy spin of ballrooms, hotel cocktail lounges with their own orchestras, first class steamship travel to Europe, fancy chauffeured limousines and all manner of license and sensuality.

Of course, we in Redbone had to cut corners, since the Ozarks were off the beaten ballroom dancing path, and the Redbone Transient Hotel was hard pressed to come up with a dance band, even when they recruited the Firehouse Five from the volunteer fire department. But we youngsters pressed on, just as we had through the Roaring Twenties when we were forced to pour bathtub gin on our cornflakes in the morning and to shimmy like our sister Kate, even if our siblings were named Arlene and Sophronisba.

Well, the 1930s were pretty much the same. All of a sudden everyone would be dancing cheek to cheek in the middle of Main Street, or a bunch of the boys would be doing their top hat, white tie and tails routine up and down the courthouse steps, much to the annoyance of the judiciary. I remember one day when we all got up a Busby Berkeley number, "Pennies From Heaven" in the First Redbone Savings & Loan, and the bank president arranged for showers of pennies to rain down on the dancers at an appropriate moment. It was weeks before I could get the jingling out of my brassiere.

Now, I'm sure that there was some inconvenience somewhere during the Great Depression, but the rest of us divided our time between flying down to Rio and looking for employment, which was nice work if you could get it. (And you could get it if you tried....)

9-20-2002

Dear Aunt Nettie: 

What do you think of Michael Jackson's announced plans to get into the movie business? He said in a magazine article, "I'd like to get six great movies behind me, and then I'll do a little bit of touring, then I'll do more filming." Any suggestion for movies that would make use of Michael's talents and, er.... qualities?

-- Doubtful in Doubell 

Dear Doubtful:

Six great movies starring Michael Jackson???  Let's see... I can name a half-dozen remakes he could try his hand at:

"Little Men"
"Lad, a Boy"
"Formerly Black Beauty"
"I Dream of Being Jeannie" 
"The Great Pretender"

...and, of course, "Apocalypse Nose"

9-21-2002

Dear Aunt Nettie: 

If you were going to be stranded on a desert island (no Internet) what would you take with you?

-- Survivor in Surabaya

Dear Survivor:

Oxygen....

And Mel Gibson.

9-22-2002

Dear Aunt Nettie: 

Why all this furor over binge drinking? When I was in college, we called it business as usual. What's your opinion? 

--Tipsy in Tipperary 

Dear Tipsy:

I think I'll take the fifth on that.

9-23-2002

The Crocodile in the Manger 

Once upon a time there was a star that shone very brightly in the East, compelling three wealthy but not-so-bright men to follow it in the hope of finding either a new god or a pot of treasure. Since they were on the Earth and the stars were fixed in the firmament, they wandered around in large, looping semicircles from sunset to dawn. Eventually their meanderings brought them to a modest village, where the star they pursued seemed to hover over a run-down stable. Lighting lamps, they entered the stable to find an immense crocodile in the manger. As they marveled at this the owner of the stable came by to see what the trespassers were up to. The three seekers explained their mission, and the owner assured them that they were looking at a first-class, oak-lined, brass-bound, dyed-in-the-wool god of awesome power and reputation.

The three men fell to their knees and inched forward to pay obeisance to this magnificent god, at which point the crocodile lunged forth and devoured each of them, spitting out only their indigestible teeth, shoe soles and moneybags. As the owner collected the moneybags and began counting his windfall, he reflected on how wise he had been to trade a saddle-horse for the huge reptile, as it dined exclusively on travelers and had no taste for gold.

Moral: A dog in the manger is merely a nuisance, but a good crocodile can be an investment.

9-24-2002

Dear Aunt Nettie: 

I have a bet with someone about this. Was the Sixties band "The Beatles" named after the German car, or was the car named after them. Hint: I bet on the second, if it's any help.

-- Scholar in Schaumburg

Dear Scholar:

"Scholar," eh? I think you may have your definitions as mixed up as your bands and your cars. A scholar is one who is a fountain of knowledge, whereas you seem to be a dripping tap of befuddlement.

What we have come to know as the "Beetle" had its origins in the Third Reich, where it was known as the "Volkswagen," or "people's car," when it was designed in 1936. It came to America in the mid-1950s, but it was pretty much a dud until VW hired Doyle Dayne Bernbach to develop what became the world's most famous series of automobile ads in 1959. DDB's copywriters were the ones who came up with the "Beetle" name, too, because of the car's resemblance to certain members of the order Coleoptera.

You're probably confusing the VW product with the "Beatle," which means "tinny horse-replacement" in certain dialects of Mongolian. It was produced in limited quantities during the 1957 model year by the State Tinny Horse Replacement Works of Inner Mongolia. Production was cancelled in 1958 when it was discovered that Inner Mongolia had no roads. All remaining unsold Beatle autos (which was all of them since the Mongolians had no more money than they had roads) were promptly sentenced to a labor camp for violating Stalinist production quotas. There they rusted away miserably, becoming totally extinct around 1970, although now and then there are rumors of some which have managed to survive and breed in the wild.

The band took its name from this unfortunate experiment in Mongolian mobilization. As John Lennon said in his classic work on the correspondence of Miguel de Cervantes, "A Spaniard in His Own Write," the group adopted the name since, after the departure of Stuart Sutcliffe and Pete Best, they felt they would soon be extinct as well, having rusted away miserably. 

9-25-2002

Dear Aunt Nettie: 

I have a question for you. You know crinoline, that stuff they use to make ladies' petticoats and stuff? I bet you don't know what it was originally used for. Do you?

-- Underwired in Underwood

Dear Underwired:

The original crinoline, from the Italian words for horsehair and flax, was used for whoopee cushions, manufactured in Turin under the brand name "Ecco, lo avete ripetuto" (Oops, you did it again).

During the Crimean War, when horsehair was in great demand to build actual horses for cavalry regiments, it became necessary to smuggle crinoline into Italy. Because of the voluminous styles of the time, women's petticoats proved to be the ideal smuggling medium. Fortunes were made and lost in the crinoline smuggling trade, and the cost of whoopee cushions shot up alarmingly, at one point reaching a high of 1,750,000 lira ($4.18) on the Practical Jokers Mercantile Index.

Alas, traders in whoopee cushions were ruined when baked beans were introduced into Italy in 1904, closely followed by seltzer. By that time styles had changed, so it became impossible to smuggle crinoline *out* of Italy in significant quantities. Several of the best whoopee cushion manufacturers were killed during the explosion of an overloaded warehouse in 1907. The noise was so loud that people as far away as Denmark blamed it on the dog.  

9-26-2002

Dear Aunt Nettie: 

Do you have any phobias? I have an aunt who goes nuts if she sees a spider, and me, I can't stand crowds. I work with a guy who was bitten by a dog when he was small, and now he starts shaking at the sight of a Chihuahua, even.

-- Agoraphobic in Agobard

Dear Agoraphobic:

None personally that I'm aware of. I happen to think spiders are some of nature's most underrated creatures, by the way.

Some people here at LDRU are known phobics, however. A couple are taphophobic, which means having a fear of being buried alive. I guess that sort of preys on the mind of us elderly folks, even though modern mortuary science assures that, regardless of what state you arrive at the funeral home, you leave very definitely deceased.

"Pabst" Bugchucker here is afraid of fog. Damned if there isn't a name for that one, too. It's called homichlophobia. Pabst's story is that he was a cod fisherman up New England way. One day he and his dory were overtaken by a fog bank and he lost all sense of direction. The fog didn't lift for 3 days, at which point he was about two pin's shy of going foolish. Sold the dory, gave up fishing and became a storekeeper because of it. He even moved to the Ozarks because fog doesn't form this high up, at least not very often. 

Speaking of losing one's marbles, another popular phobia at wrinkle ranches like this one is lyssophobia, or the fear of going crazy. This usually takes the form of worrying about Alzheimer's, which is normal enough, I suppose, except some people become obsessed with it. Every mental slip-up sends them off like a Greek chorus. 

Myself, I've noticed that I really don't forget anything, but occasionally the access time stretches out into days or weeks. Sometimes for... what comes after weeks again...? 

9-27-2002

Dear Aunt Nettie: 

My Christian faith has been sorely shaken. It appears from news stories that a farmer in Bombay found a potato in his field that was a ringer for the Hindu elephant-headed god Lord Ganesha. Pilgrims are flocking to his house in Bombay where they've set up a shrine. I thought appearances like this only happened in God-fearing Christian lands?

-- Perplexed in Perpetua

Dear Perplexed:

No, it's quite common with religions that worship images. Just last week a woman found a Saint Boniface in a jar of marmalade, and some Tibetan dug up a rutabaga that was the spitting image of the Dalai Lama. Then in the Congo there's a squash in the form of N'n'n'n'ngummitch, the Goddess of Inclement Weather, and a baobab tree in Ethiopia that looks like Prester John when the light is right.

And of course in Italy it sometimes seems that every third pizza they produce for export has the Virgin Mary depicted in the cheese or the sauce. Some pizzerias over there have had to install candles and stained glass to keep up with the pilgrims.

However, your faith will be restored very shortly. I hear that Ore-Ida is countering the Indian god with a potato Jesus whose eyes follow you when you move around the room....

9-28-2002 

Dear Aunt Nettie: 

Why?

--Querulous in Quincy

Dear Querulous: 

Because.  Just because.... 

9-29-2002

Dear Aunt Nettie: 

How many people do you think are using the carpool lanes with a mannequin in the passenger seat?

--Livid Carpooler from Liverpool

Dear Livid:

I have no idea. I'm much more concerned when the dummy is behind the wheel. 

9-30-2002

Dear Aunt Nettie: 

What's this "luck of the Irish" thing all about? The Irish don't seem very lucky to me.

-- Glenn in Glendora

Dear Glenn:

In spite of all their troubles, the Irish were lucky enough to have invented whiskey, in which all other problems are soluble. 

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