Thursday, April 22, 1993
The results are back! For
those of you who have been
waiting all semester for the
survey I ran -- you're in rock!
I've finally tabulated the
nvonses.
Granted, the questionnaire was
not designed by an expert
survey-maker. It was not
conducted in purely random
order. And no, it is not worthy
enough to be cited as a source of
information. I am aware that
this is not a reputable and
accurate survey, but it's a survey
nontheless.
I was not out to prove any
political point, or to be crude.
It was designed to be fun.
Don't read into it. I know,
however, that not everyone can
be pleased or amused.
Warning: The
following material may
not be suitable for the
elderly, members of the
clergy, or those with
weak stomachs, heart
conditions, or bladder
infections. These are the
statistics of what many Penn
State students have done:
MIZENI
•
ICS` 65% of respondents
made scary faces at young
children at some
,time in their
"The
by Dave Barry
Syndicated Columnist
In our family, we like to
engage in group sports
activities, because we have fun
and learn more about each other
as human beings. For example,
without the sport of skiing, I
would never have found out
what the inside of my wife's left
knee looks like.
This came about because of
an unplanned skiing maneuver
that Beth performed in Colorado
("The People On Crutches
State"). Beth and I were
attempting to ski, as a family,
with our son, Rob, who, being
12, is not legally required to
obey the laws of gravity. Rob
skis the way the Road Runner
runs in cartoons. He looks for
the steepest, scariest slope, one
where the bottom is littered
with the carcasses of mountain
goats and professional rock
climbers who died attempting to
get down it. Without pausing,
he launches himself off the
edge, stops in midair to look
around for several seconds, then
WHOOSH turns into a blur and
zips to the bottom, where he
turns back -- he is a tiny black
dot n, .
survey
rir A surprising 73% had
lied about their ages.
Surprizing, that is, because it's
not 100%1
rP Only 35% claimed that
they had never purposely
worried their mothers.
To my surprise, 69%
had peed in someone else's
swimming pool. I'm glad to
learn that I'm not the only one.
IGr Amazingly enough,
46% remembered passing gas
during a church sermon.
ICW' 62% pushed all the
buttons on an elevator before
getting off.
rir 81% burped grossly in
public places.
la' 42% discussed food or
restaurants at a funeral at one
time or another.
I Oddly, 30% of males
reported having their fingers
break through the toilet paper.
8ut...76% of girls claimed the
same thing. That's a 2:5 ratio!
rir 77% of respondents
claimed that they had accused
someone of doing something
they know Neirrr IM O O I4
of.
rir An astounding 42% had
written something on a
bathroom wall or Wet stall.
oni half had
Colorado
people
mountain -- and shouts
impatiently, "Come ON! Beep
beep!!"
Then Beth and I, playing the
part of stupid old Wile E.
Coyote, inch our way
cautiously to the edge and start
to descend the slope at about the
same velocity as one of your
less-active glaciers, sometimes
getting as far as 18 inches
before our skis -- these are rental
skis, and they can smell fear in
a person -- become skittish and
attempt to flee in opposite
directions, causing us to
collapse like cheap tents in a
high wind.
This is what happened to Beth
in Colorado. Hooked back and
saw her lying on the slope
directly under a chairlift, in great
pain, with two ski-patrol guys
kneeling next to her,
administering First Aid to her
knee and building a little shelter
to protect her from the thick
storm of business cards being
dropped from the chairlift by
personal-injury attorneys.
(I am just kidding, of course.
They parachuted down in
person.)
So we went to the hospital,
where a doctor explained, with
Results of a
Opinion
revealed
stuck their gum under a chair or
table. This is strange
considering the fact that if
someone counted all the pieces
of gum stuck under chairs and
tables here, the number might
actually be higher than the total
number of students who ever
went to Behrend.
r3 9 ' 31% had parked M a
handicapped spot -- even if it
was for a short time with their
blinkers on.
rir 19% had walked out of
restaurant without paying the
bill, whether intentional or by
absent-tnindednus.
Kr 54% returned something
could be called
on crutches state"
the aid of an extremely detailed
life-size model, how the human
knee joint works. (Not very
well, is the answer.) I didn't
catch everything he said; I'm not
good at looking directly at
medical things. I believe that if
Nature wanted us to know what
knee joints look like, then
Nature would not have covered
them with skin.
So I was swaying gently back
and forth, like a palm tree about
to lose its lunch, and the doctor
was thrusting this realistic
model knee joint at me and
saying, "OK, you see this
ligament? Your wife
SNAPPED this ligament. It's
GONE. So now her leg can do
THIS." Here he picked up
Beth's lower leg and move it in
a way that clearly indicated that
it was not fully attached to her
upper leg. "See this
movement?" the doctor was
saying. "This is WRONG!" At
one point, I believe he took
Beth's lower leg completely out
of the room, leaving the rest of
Beth with me, but I can't be
certain because by then I was
sitting on the floor and my body
had wisely shut down the blood
flow to my brain.
used it.
ice' 89% admitted cheating
on a test at some time.
rir Only 11% said they had
never argued with someone they
knew was correct.
rir 73% said that they had
taken credit for something
someone else did -- whether
good or bad.
rir .82% of girls flipped
someone off while driving. For
guys, however, the results were
unanimous.
Eir A perverted 11% looked
at one of their parents while
they were changing or were
naked.
54% hid food at the
dinner table in order to throw it
away, or feed it to the dog.
ICS 62% had called one of
their boyfriends or girlfriends
the name of a former boyfriend
or girlfriend. I thought that
kind of thing only happened on
TV.
Irk About half of the
respon-dents reported smiling to
themselves after somebody
vomited nearby. Maybe only
1% (the extremely Mink) would
still be smiling if they were hit
by the puke.
riP 54% passed rumors they
knew were lies. Contraty to
So we came back home to
Miami and met with more
doctors, who also had realistic
knee models. (I am thinking of
carrying one around myself, to
scare off muggers.) Each doctor
found more things wrong with
Beth's knee ("See this?
GONE."). Beth decided that
she'd better have knee surgery
right away, because the way the
diagnoses were escalating, it
was only a matter of time before
the doctors started talking heart
transplant.
So I took Beth in for surgery,
and they wheeled Beth off to the
operating room. I was reassured
to note that they had used a felt
tipped marker to put an "X" on
her left foot, so the doctor
would know which leg to
operate on. This reminded me
of the time when my friend
Claire had to have surgery on
her leg, and she insisted that her
friend Ginny write "NOT THIS
LEG" in big letters on the other
leg.
Here's a good practical joke:
If you ever have to have brain
surgery, have a friend write
"NOT THIS HEAD" on your
scalp.
Anyway, after I had been in
conventional wisdom, guys
seem to gossip more than girls!
75% of guys passed known lies,
while only 42% of girls did,
believe it or not.
It A scary 58% had the
urge to slip someone Ex-Lax
without them knowing. Even
more frightening: 15% actually
had!
If the results of this survey
surprise you, think of who
you're dealing with. Certainly
no one ever said that our
generation is one concerned with
manners and good ethics,
although perhaps we should try
to be more often.
And should you accidently let
an obnoxious burp rip out of
your mouth in a classy
restaurant, don't feel bad -- just
remember that 81% of your
peers would probably applaud
you, or at least laugh.
I guess there's only one thing
to ask ourselves: What's the
world coming to!?!
Matt Duddy is a fourth ,
semester science major. Ills
column appears every other
week in The Collegian.
the waiting room for about
eight years, the surgeon came
out. He had good news and bad
news. The good news was that
the operation went fine. The
bad news was that he had taken
color Polaroid photographs of
the inside of Beth's knee.
Suddenly, with no advance
warning, he was thrusting these
at me, right there in the waiting
room. "And THIS," he was
saying, quite enthusiastically,
like a man showing pictures of
his trip to Yellowstone, "is her
ligament stump."
I don't know about you, but I
think there should be a certain
amount of mystery about a
woman.
Anyway, Beth is going to be
OK, and I have to say that, even
though this was not a pleasant
experience, I was impressed
with the way the health-care
system operated. The only
major area where I see a need for
improvement -- Hillary Clinton,
take note -- is that Colorado
should be much flatter.
Dave Etany appears every
week in The Collegian
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