Are Lobsters Ambidextrous? (36 page)

Maybe in the future we will publish a book of Letters to Imponderables. Until that day, we have room to print only a fraction of the thousands of letters we receive every year. This section is reserved not for new Imponderables, conjectures about Frustables, or even words of praise, but rather for readers who want to vent their spleen about what we’ve written in the past
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In August 1992, we republished all but the first Imponderables book in paperback, incorporating many of the suggestions and corrections of readers. It can sometimes take years to validate objections and change the text on subsequent printings, but we do so regularly
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We appreciate your suggestions and consider every one carefully. The letters published here are not the only valid criticisms or suggestions we received, just some of the more entertaining ones that we hope will appeal to a wide audience
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From now on, maybe we’ll need to put an expiration date on Imponderables. In
Do Penguins Have Knees?
we answered the question, “Why Are There Peanuts in Plain M&Ms?” Guess what? Hans Fiuczynski, external relations director of M&M/ Mars, writes to tell us that the premise of the Imponderable is now moot:

 

Historically, M&M/Mars has used the same milk chocolate in both M&Ms Plain and Peanut Chocolate Candies. This milk chocolate contained a small amount of finely ground peanuts.

At considerable investment in the plants producing these products, the chocolate production has been separated and the usage of any peanuts in the chocolate for M&M Plain Chocolate Candies eliminated, starting January 1992. However, as a precaution, we will continue to maintain the declaration of peanuts as an ingredient in M&Ms Plain Chocolate Candies. This is to provide protection to peanut-sensitive individuals in the event that a small
amount of peanuts may inadvertently appear in M&M’s Plain Chocolate Candies.

 

We’re also sad to report that the Imponderable from our first book—“What Is the Purpose of the Red Tear String on Band-Aids?”—won’t make sense to kids in the next century. By the end of 1992, Johnson & Johnson will have phased out the tear strings altogether, substituting an adhesive strip
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But M&M/Mars and Johnson & Johnson aren’t the only corporations dedicated to reform. Jena Paolilli of Chelmsford, Massachusetts, writes
:

 

In
Why Do Dogs Have Wet Noses?
you answered the question, “Why is there no expiration date on toothpaste?” by saying that there is none needed. I have found expiration dates on four tubes of toothpaste: two on Colgate for Kids (different sizes), one on Tartar Control Gel Colgate, and one on Colgate’s Peak Baking Soda Gel…

 

We called the folks at Colgate, and they corroborated the recent appearance of an expiration date. “Why do you need one now if you didn’t a few years ago?” we asked. The consumer affairs representative indicated Colgate probably didn’t. The ingredients haven’t changed, and it isn’t at all dangerous to use toothpaste after the expiration date. But occasionally the flavoring or the fluoride in toothpaste breaks down chemically. The result is usually a watery consistency or a funny taste. In most cases, Colgate advised, the toothpaste is usable for at least a year after the date on the package
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In
Why Do Dogs Have Wet Noses?
we stated that, usually, the answer to “What vegetables are used in vegetable oil?” was: soybean oil. But canola oil has made great inroads, as Lauralou Cicierski, of the Canola Council of Canada, was pleased to inform us. Procter & Gamble’s Crisco and Puritan Oils now both contain 100 percent canola oil, and other brands’ ingredient lists increasingly say “canola oil and/or soybean oil
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The times, they are a-changin’, we guess. And not only in the candy, oil, bandage, and toothpaste industries. It seems like
there has been rampant inflation in Social Security numbers, too
:

 

In your book
When Do Fish Sleep
? you state that the highest numbers assigned as the first three digits of a Social Security number are 575-576 in Hawaii. I don’t believe this is true. My wife and I both have SSNs that begin 585. In fact, most of the people I grew up with in Clovis, New Mexico, had 585 numbers.

 

H
AROLD
G
AINES
St. Louis, Missouri

 

You’re right. Historically, New Mexico’s SSNs start with 525, but when they ran out of numbers, New Mexico, for a while, had the highest number, 585, of the fifty states. But several other states have been assigned bigger numbers since we wrote
When Do Fish Sleep? (
Mississippi, 587-588; Florida, 589-595; Arizona, 600-601; and California, 602-626). The highest numbers that the Social Security Administration issues, 700-728, still belong to railroad employees, although new numbers in the 700-series have not been assigned since 1963
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While we are focusing on geographical grumblings, we heard a chauvinistic chant from Ken Giesbers of Seattle, Washington. He asks us, “How dare you claim East Coast weather is weirder than ours
?”

 

In
Why Do Dogs Have Wet Noses
? you state: “Of course, the volatility of weather in the East makes the job of a weathercaster considerably dicier than his West Coast counterparts.” You should be aware that the West Coast extends northerly past Southern California.

Weather prediction in the Pacific Northwest is considered the hardest in the nation. Having lived in the Portland and Seattle areas all of my life, I was shocked, on a recent trip to Boston, to hear a forecasted high temperature of 82 degrees. In Seattle, no forecaster would ever be so bold. The forecast would be for “a high in the upper seventies to mid-eighties,” and it would be wrong as often as right. The proximity of an ocean to the west, inland waterways, and mountain peaks with glacial networks all combine to make prediction very difficult indeed.

 

Heck, Ken, we think weather forecasting in the Northwest is a snap. “Cool, cloudy, chance of rain and showers” should work, oh, about 355 days of the year. And don’t assume the weather forecast of 82 degrees in Boston was correct, either
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Larry Mills of Southfield, Michigan, attributes the presence of the oft-discussed ball on top of a flagpole to weather factors—lightning, in particular:

 

The large ball is on top to greatly reduce the electrical tension that might build during electrical storms…this is opposite to a lightning rod, which comes to a sharp point to assure that electrical tension that may build at or near a structure will surely strike the rod.

 

We’ve never heard this theory before, and we’ve heard plenty on the topic
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But the flagpole ball Imponderable is a piker compared to all the letters we’ve received about why ranchers hang their boots on fenceposts, a staple of every Letters section. We are pleased to announce that we received only one new theory in the last year; perhaps we are starting to wean you from this topic. William Papavasilion, a teacher/folklorist from Lancaster, Pennsylvania, writes that in some areas, it was customary for folks to leave unneeded boots outside to be taken for the asking. Nowhere was this policy practiced more than at Boot Hill:

 

If a deceased person had a good pair of boots, the undertaker (usually) would place his boots near the entrance of the cemetery. If a person took a kindness to a pair of boots, he simply would take the pair.

 

Speaking of death, J. Stephen Paul of West Monroe, New York, reports the rare sighting of a bird dying in flight. But he concurs with our analysis of what happens to dead birds: “By the third day, it must have been scavenged or resurrected itself.” Paul’s son also watched a bird “whop down” in flight. (“Threw a rod, I guess.”) If Paul doesn’t seem too sentimental about death, it may be because he is a hospital consultant, and
he supplied another reason why surgeons wear blue or green uniforms (see
Why Do Clocks Run Clockwise?
):

 

When medical personnel are operating, looking at red for a long time, a retinal imprint is established on the eye. When looking away, this appears as a greenish afterimage or “ghost image” wherever they look until it fades out. To counter this bothersome effect, which occurs any time a surgeon or assistant looks away to rest the eyes, the walls and clothing are colored a matching shade to render this effect invisible…

 

Can anyone confirm this theory
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Dead birds weren’t the only feathered friends on your minds. Several of you tried to help us out after we confessed in
Why Do Dogs Have Wet Noses?
that we didn’t know how “turkey” came to mean a show business flop. Terry Pruitt of Gadsden, Alabama, hypothesizes that a bad show is like a turkey trying to fly—it may sputter aloft for a while, but eventually it will flop to the ground. But several readers, Daniel J. Drazen of Berwyn, Illinois, being the first, found citations of this very topic in various books. Drazen located an explanation in Harry and Michael Medved’s
Son of Golden Turkey Awards.
According to the Medveds, the colloquialism was coined because vaudeville shows used to conduct Thanksgiving performances but attendance was poor. “Turkey Nights” were dreaded gigs for performers, and mediocre acts got stuck playing them. Such entertainers, without any clout, were called “Turkey Acts” and, eventually, simply “Turkeys.” In a recent issue of
Variety,
Jeremy Gerard contended that “turkey” was originally a Broadway term coined to denote a poor show—one that was performed not during bad attendance times but good:

 

…“turkey” was coined to denote a show of dubious merit mounted between Thanksgiving and the New Year in order to ride out the seasonal tourist trade regardless of the [critical] pans.

 

In
Why Do Dogs Have Wet Noses?
we tackled a couple of Imponderables about worms. “Are the nineties going to be the Decade of the Larva?” we mused about this obsession. Our joke
didn’t sit too well with two of our Illinois readers, Neil B. Schanker of Palatine and Craig Cicero of Rockford. As both pointed out, worms are not larvae. They remain the same structurally as they grow. Schanker, by the way, is an assistant professor of biology at William Rainey Harper College. Craig Cicero is not yet a professor—he’s thirteen years old
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While we’re on the subject of insects, we have a ticklish issue to discuss. In
When Do Fish Sleep?
we quoted an entomologist as saying that crickets “chirp” by rubbing their legs together. In
Do Penguins Have Knees?
we ran an angry letter from another entomologist berating us, insisting that crickets rub the scrapers on their wings to cause the noise. We issued a groveling apology. Several readers have sent us textbooks, most with diagrams, indicating that the noise comes from scrapers on the legs. How can something so simple be in question? The final straw was when our eight-year-old nephew, Michael Feldman, found the following quotation in a book called
Wings,
written by Nick Bantoc: “Crickets chirp by rubbing their wings or legs together.” We give up
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On second thought, we don’t give up. How can we rest when we are presented with a new, unsolved mystery by reader Stephen Hostettler of Chico, California?

 

I offer further evidence that fish do sleep. Several months ago, I got up to discover one of the swordtails missing from our tank. My wife found him swimming in a teacup on the far side of the double sink. Everything else on the counter and both sides of the sink were dry—proof positive that he was sleepwalking. The event so traumatized the little critter that he hasn’t closed both eyes.

 

How do you know your fish doesn’t take naps when you leave the room? Or don’t the Hostettlers sleep?

Paul J. Breslin of Tuscaloosa, Alabama, took us to task for our discussion of the role of dalmations in firefighting in
Why Do Clocks Run Clockwise?
He thinks we left the impression that the main task of dalmations was to run in front of the coach to clear traffic. Although we did read first-person accounts
(from the firemen, not the dalmations) of dogs clearing traffic, we probably did put too much emphasis on this task. Breslin summarizes their main duties well: “The dalmation’s job was to keep the horses pulling together, to keep them from tangling the lines, to keep them apart, and to insure they were on the right lead
.”