Thursday, November 19, 1992
The top 34 most thought-provoking ?’s
by Alicia Hartman
The Collegian
Test Time! Don't turn the
page! Come back! This is a very
interesting and thought
provoking mind exercise. Just
keep reading.
Throughout my long and wis
dom-filled eighteen years of life,
there have been numerous things
that have constantly plagued my
mind. There are many questions
that I have collected over the
years ( an exact total of 34), and
maybe you have some of the an
swers.
1) How many licks does it
take to get to the middle of a
Tootsie-Roll Tootsie-Pop? I don't
really care for Tootsie-Rolls so I
just eat the sucker part.
2) How do they get the cream
inside Twinkies? I know it's not
"magic", and it's certainly not
"bom" there.
3) What ever happened to Mr.
Whipple (you know, "don't
squeeze the Charmin) and
"Where's the Beef" lady? They
were my commercial heroes.
4) Why is the sky blue? I used
to know the answer to that but I
forgot
by Dave Barr;
Syndicated Columnist
TODAY’S SCARY TOPIC
FOR PARENTS IS: What Your
Children Do When You're Not
Home.
I have here a letter from
Buffalo, N.Y., working mom
Judy Price, concerning her 14-
year-old son, David, “who should
certainly know better, because the
school keeps telling me he is a
genius, but I have not seen signs
of this in our normal, everyday
life.”
Judy states that one day when
she came home from work, David
met her outside and said: “Hi
Mom. Are you going in ?”
(This is a bad sign, parents.)
Judy says she considered
replying, “No, I thought I’d just
stay here in the car all night and
pull away for work in the
morning.”
That actually would have been
a wise idea. Instead, she went
inside where she found a large
black circle burned into the
middle of her kitchen counter.
“DAVID,” she screamed.
“WHAT WERE YOU
COOKING?”
The soft, timid reply came
back: “A baseball.”
“A baseball,” Judy writes.
“Of course. What else could it
be? How could I forget to tell
my children never to cook a
baseball? It’s my fault, really.”
5) Why is water blue?
6) Why is the grass green?
7) does rain taste like?
I've never tasted the rain, but I
have eaten snow. No, I'm not
kidding. It's great, try it!
8) What day of your life do you
spend the most money? Probably
your wedding. (This one is for
you, Brian.) Thousands of dollars
for invitations, food, a band, a
dress, a church, etc. just to pub
licly acclaim that you love
someone? Buy an ad in The
Collegian. It's cheaper. You'd re
ally make Dave Mahoney happy.
9) How much of your life is
spent waiting for things like
standing in line to buy some
thing? I’ve heard guesstimates
that range from 10-20 years! ugh.
10) Do our toilets flush clock
wise or counter-clockwise?
ll)Thus, after answering ques
tion #lO, does water below the
equator run the opposite direc
tion?
12) Is there anything out there
that doesn't give you cancer?
Everything you eat is bad for you
these days.
13) Why does the vent give
you more heat in your car than
the heater?
For every genius kid, there's a very
good-humored but sneaky mom
It turns out that according to
David’s best friend’s cousin - and
if you can’t believe HIM, who
CAN you believe? - you can
hit a baseball three times as far if
you heat it up first. So David did
this, and naturally he put the red
hot pan down directly onto the
counter top, probably because
there was no rare antique furniture
available.
For the record: David claims
that the heated baseball did, in
fact, go farther. But this does
NOT mean that you young
readers should try this foolish and
dangerous experiment at home.
Use a friend’s home.
No, seriously, you young
people should never heat a
baseball without proper adult
supervision, just as you should
never and I say this from
personal experience - attempt to
make a rumba box.
A rumba box is an obscure
musical instrument that consists
of a wooden box with metal
strips attached to it in such a way
that when you plunk them, the
box resonates with a pleasant,
rhythmic sound. The only time I
ever saw a rumba box was in
1964, when a friend of my
parents named Walter Karl played
one at a gathering at our house,
and it sounded great. Mr. Karl
explained that the metal strips
were actually pieces of the spring
from an old-fashioned wind-up
phonograph. This gave my best
The Collegian
14) Who thought of the word,
"supercalifragilisticexpiali
docious”?
15) Do ghosts really exist?
16) Why are the stars arranged
in picture patterns?
17) Why do teachers get of
fended when you correct them? It
means you're actually learning
something! They should be
happy, not angry.
18) How do we know that the
people who write dictionaries
haven't forgotten any words?
friend, Lanny Watts, an idea.
Lanny was always having
ideas. For example, one day he
got tired of walking to the end of
his driveway to get the mail, so
he had the idea of hanging the
mailbox from a rope-and-pulley
system strung up the driveway to
Dave Barry
his porch, where he hooked it up
to a washing-machine motor.
When the mailman came, Lanny
simply plugged in the motor, and
whoosh, the mailbox fell down.
The amount of time Lanny spent
unsuccessfully trying to get this
labor-saving device to work was
equivalent to approximately
19) If you create a new word,
do you have to get a patent? And
then do you get it placed in a dic
tionary? Would there be
(ORIGIN: Your Name) after your
word?
20) Why hasn't a word been
developed to replace "he/she"
when writing? If "he/she" is gen
derly equal, then why is "he"
written first?
21) Why isn't left "right" and
right "left", and down "up” and
up "down" How's that for a
longue twister?
22) What is it like living un
derwater?
23) How do computers work?
Please put your explanation in
everyday terms.
24) W..y is high school "the
best time of your life"?
25) Are stories in The Enquirer
true ?
26) Did you realize that the
color red Isee isn't the color red
you see?
27) Why does it seem that win
ter is the longest season?
28) How does hypnosis work?
I tried to be hypnotized under
"Amazing Neil" but it didn't
work. Call me a cynic.
5,000 trips to get the actual mail,
but that is the price of
convenience.
So anyway, when Lanny heard
Mr. Karl explain the rumba box,
he realized two things:
1. His parents had an old
fashioned wind-up phonograph
they hardly ever used.
2. They both worked out of
the home.
So Lanny and I decided to make
our own rumba box. Our plan,
as I recall it, was to take the
phonograph apart, snip off a bit
of the spring, then put the
phonograph back together, and
nobody would be the wiser. This
plan worked perfectly until we
removed the metal box that held
the phonograph spring; this box
turned out to be very hard to
open.
“Why would they make it so
strong?” we asked ourselves.
Finally, recalling the lessons
we had learned about mechanical
advantages in high school
physics class, we decided to hit
the box with a sledge hammer.
So you remember the climactic
scene in the movie “Raiders of
the Lost Ark,” when the Nazis
open up the Ark of the Covenant,
and out surges a terrifying horde
of evil fury and the Nazis’ heads
melt like chocolate bunnies in a
microwave? Well, that’s similar
to what happened when Lanny
sledge-hammered the spring box.
It turns out that the reason the
Page 5
29) Arc the tricks that magi
cian David Copperfield performs
real, or are they just optical illu
sions?
30) What would a day in space
be like with the Jetson’s?
31) Did you know that there
are lawyers who specialize in the
custody of pets in divorce cases? I
heard this on the radio about a
week ago.
32) What would it be like ap
pearing as a contestant on a game
show?
33) Why don't "adults" go to
the toy store when they need to
release the childish side of them?
When is the last time you were
in a toy store? I go to Toys R
Us all the time. You can fly
down the aisles on a skateboard,
play floor hockey, make all kinds
of noises with cool electronic
gadgets It's fun!!!
34) Is anyone still reading
these ridiculous questions? Rest
assured, I'm done now (until next
time).
Alicia Hartman is a freshman
majoring in communication. Her
column appears every other week
in The Collegian.
box is so strong is that there is a
really powerful, tightly wound,
extremely irritable spring in
there, and when you let it out, it
just goes berserk, writhing and
snarling and thrashing violently
all over the room, seeking to
gain revenge on all the people
who have cranked it over the
years.
Lanny and I fled the room until
the spring calmed down. When
we returned, we found
phonograph parts spread all over
the room, mixed with
approximately 2.4 miles of
spring. We realized we’d have to
modify our Project Goal slightly,
from making a rumba box to
being in an entirely new
continent when Lanny’s mom
got home.
Actually, Mrs. Watts went
fairly easy on us, just as Judy
Price seems to have been good
humored about her son’s heating
the baseball. Moms are usually
pretty good that way.
But sometimes I wonder. You
know how guys are always
complaining that they used to
have a baseball-card collection
that would be worth a fortune
today if they still had it, but their
moms threw it out? And the
guys always say, “Mom just
didn’t know any better.”
Well, I wonder if the moms
knew exactly what they were
doing.
Getting even.