Just For Fun

Ladies and gentlemen, you saw it here first! This is the beginning of a movement that just might save our planet.

There are a few long words involved, and even some numbers, so please bear with me while I explain.

First, the numbers. According to the March 2013 issue of National Geographic, some British scientists have calculated that the world’s overweight people add 3.9 million tons of weight to the planet. With her human population at 7 billion plus, the last thing poor old Mother Earth needs is millions of us, selfishly slurping our supersized sodas, adding weight to the load she already carries.

After all, she’s facing enough challenges. Global warming, for example. Some people believe that melting ice is going to raise sea levels and flood low-lying coastal areas all around the world.

Those two pieces of information may seem disheartening. Put them together, though, and what they add up to is not a crisis, but a wonderful opportunity.

The secret behind this opportunity is the little-known principle of isostasy. This term describes the way the Earth’s crust stays in equilibrium. When an area has a lot of weight on it, it sinks, just like your foam mattress pad or seat cushion does when you sit down on it. When that weight is removed, the area rises, the same way the foam cushion rises back to its former shape when you get up.

Isostasy explains what happens at the end of an Ice Age. All those heavy glaciers melt, and the ground where they used to be rises—no doubt with a great sigh of relief.

Here’s how this could save the planet. Just suppose all the obese people in the world went on diets and lost all those excess pounds. According to the principle of isostasy, the ground they inhabit would rise. This just might lift the coasts enough to keep them above the rising sea levels and save them from being flooded. Losing weight, then, wouldn’t just be good for each of us as individuals. It would also benefit our poor old overloaded planet.

As an added bonus, being slender would allow us not just to cope with global warming, but to even enjoy it. Just think how much better we would look in short shorts and bikinis.

The geologist who shares my life and my living space (which is safely in the middle of the country far about sea level, thank you) was unkind enough to point out that this plan isn’t supported by science. According to him, the theory doesn’t quite hold up.

To which I say, let’s not allow inconvenient facts to stand in the way of progress. When has the lack of scientific validity ever stopped a popular movement? We have slogans to create, websites to build, videos to make, and followers to tweet to. Above all, we have grants to apply for.

To start things off, here is my personal pledge: Starting today, I promise to lose the 8 extra pounds that make up my share of humanity’s 3.9 million tons of excess poundage.

Every great movement has to start somewhere.

Sex appeal. It's hard to define, but we know it when we see it. We've all seen the woman who can raise the temperature ten degrees just by walking into a room. All the women either want to be her or are tempted to drop a poisoned olive into her martini. All the men want to take her home—and not to meet their mothers.

I have never been one of those women.

Maybe sex appeal is genetic. Maybe it's learned. Or maybe it's simply a matter of paying attention. If you want guys to notice you, it probably is a good idea to notice them back. This is the part I've always missed.

Like the time, as a freshman in college, I was sunbathing on the grass near my dorm. The football coach came by with a couple of high school seniors he was recruiting. With the boys at his heels, he veered off the sidewalk and came over to ask me a question.

My work-study job was in the admissions office, so it wasn't completely unreasonable for the coach to ask me an admissions question. Except I knew perfectly well he knew the answer as well as I did. I answered him politely anyway, he introduced the two boys, I said hi, there was an awkward pause, then they went on their way and I went back to my book.

I'm sure you've seen the formula by now, but it was months before I figured it out. Coach has good football prospects. Prospects are 18-year-old guys. Coach sees girl in bikini. Coach makes introductions. Coach figures chemistry will do its work.

Except the coach didn't know I never took chemistry. He saw a perfect recruiting opportunity, but I blew it. The losing football season the next year was probably all my fault.

Fast-forward about 30 years. I needed to replace a couple of thermal-paned windows in my house. No big deal; I took the windows out of their frames and took them to the store for the repair.

When I went back later to pick them up, the man who waited on me was exceptionally friendly and helpful. He took care of the paperwork, loaded the windows into my car, and then asked me if I had someone at home to reinstall them for me. No, I said. He offered to come to my house after work and take care of it. I said thanks, I could handle it myself. I was a little surprised at the offer—it seemed like taking customer service a bit too far.

Later, telling a friend about it, I asked, "Do I look incompetent to you? That guy thought I wasn't smart enough to do a simple thing like put a window back in."

My friend asked, "How old was this guy?"

"About my age. Why?"

"Didn't you get it? He was flirting. If you'd let him install the windows, he'd probably have asked you out."

"Oh."
I hadn't noticed. Never mind.

One time, though, I did experience what it's like to have the attention of every guy in the place.
My husband's construction company was working on a job in Minnesota. They needed a new pickup, and my husband found a used Dodge in Illinois. He flew me there and dropped me off to drive the pickup back to the jobsite.

It was a gorgeous truck, one sleek ton of gleaming black and gray with chrome that had been polished till it sparkled. Only a year old, it was so clean that it even smelled new. Its Cummins diesel engine rumbled like a kitten on steroids.

I climbed in, adjusted the seat as far forward as it would go, and roared off toward the Interstate. With the power I had under the hood, the six-hour trip across Wisconsin and half of Minnesota was a piece of cake. It was late afternoon when I pulled into the parking lot of our motel, shut off the ignition, and let the truck grumble into silence.

I got out. I stretched. Then I noticed several young guys across the parking lot, obviously construction workers just getting off for the day. They were looking in my direction. I could see the desire in their eyes. They were practically drooling.

I knew exactly what they wanted, and I knew I had it. My reaction was smug satisfaction. I gave them a big smile, thinking, Don't you wish. What I have here is way out of your league.

I knew they were looking at my truck.

Zombies and vampires. They're everywhere. Their invasion over the past few years has been so successful that it's impossible to escape from them.

Especially in movie theatres, libraries, and bookstores. The last time I browed through the young adult section of a bookstore, there was nothing on the shelves but ominous dark covers with blood-red titles dripping gore. I had to get out of there while I was still breathing.

Some blood-sucking author has even inflicted zombies on Jane Austen. Someone else has saddled Abraham Lincoln with vampires. As if the man didn't already carry enough of a burden, what with the Civil War and all.

It's enough to send cold shivers down the spine of a reader of plain old-fashioned murder mysteries where, when people are killed, they tend to stay dead. Though I have to admit I did read a zombie novel not long ago. I didn't mean to, honest. I thought it was science fiction. But by the time the zombies appeared, I was too far into the story to give up without finding out how it ended.
(Hint: the zombies didn't die.)

What I've recently discovered, however, is that the zombie and vampire invasion may be even worse than anyone realizes. The undead may have begun infiltrating humankind much earlier than we thought.

This discovery came via a message embedded in an innocent-appearing newspaper article reporting the death of astronaut Neil Armstrong. When I read it, my blood ran cold. The piece, from the Associated Press, appeared in our local paper on Sunday, August 26. Referring to Armstrong's historic first step onto the moon on July 20, 1969, it stated: "Although more than half of the world's population wasn't alive then, it was an event that changed and expanded the globe."

Of course, it's possible that what this sentence meant to say was that half of the people living on Earth today weren't yet born in 1969.

But maybe not. Maybe there really were that many zombies, all across the planet, living secretly among us. That obnoxious kid in first grade who ate all your paste? The odd guy in high school who wore sandals with socks, even in February? That weird sociology teacher your freshman year in college? Your bullying first boss? This could explain a lot of strange people.

But it gets worse. Just think about it. These are the undead. No matter what happens to them, they keep on going, like a bunch of cuteness-challenged Energizer Bunnies. If they've been around since 1969 or earlier, a lot of them are probably collecting Social Security by now.

Taxpayers everywhere should be very afraid.

You can buy mustache wax at the drug store in Custer, South Dakota. Heck, for all I know, you can buy it at drug stores everywhere. Not having a mustache myself, thank goodness, I've never had occasion to look.

My daughter did, though. Not, I hasten to explain, that she has a mustache, either. At the moment her husband does. His most recent role at the Black Hills Playhouse, as a sword-wielding evil henchman, required a mustache, waxed to suitably swashbuckling points. It looked good on him, too.

Although, even waxed, it wasn't anywhere close to being the most memorable mustache I've ever seen. That impressive growth of facial hair decorated the upper lip of a park ranger whose location will not be revealed in case he and his mustache are still employed there.

My parents, my aunt, and I had stopped at an information center and asked this man some questions. He was tall and slim, good-looking in a middle-aged cowboy way. Though, honestly, the only thing I really remember about his appearance was that incredible mustache. Pulled out straight, it would probably have extended several inches on either side of his mouth like the whiskers of a cat. We couldn't really estimate the length, though, because each end was so tightly curled. Not just into a swoop or a partial circle, but around and around in several ever-smaller spirals. Both curls were perfectly round and symmetrical, kept in place by what must have been enough wax to polish a convertible. Whenever he spoke, those curls twitched and quivered in a most fascinating manner.

After we got back to our car, my father accused my mother and aunt of asking the man unnecessary questions just so they could watch his mustache. They didn't deny it, possibly because they were giggling too hard to say anything.

None of us, though, asked him the things we really wanted to know. Like how he managed to get those curls so perfect. Did he wind the ends around his little finger? Use bobby pins? Roll them on little tiny curlers? He presumably didn't use a curling iron; the heat would have melted the wax.

But for me, at least, the most interesting question was what that mustache must have looked like when he woke up in the morning. Did he wash off the wax and go to bed with each side of his mustache in a little braid? Or tie the ends together under his chin? Or just let the wax stick wherever it would? I had a mental picture of those careful curls, all askew, plastered crookedly to his cheeks with wax. It wasn't an appealing image.

I suppose one way to find out would be to frequent cowboy bars and look for a man with a similar mustache, then pick him up and take him home. The next morning, all my questions would be answered as soon as I woke up and put my glasses on.

But even for an inquiring mind, that would be carrying research way too far.