Column: Chew on this
This week, I accomplished a monumental task in my life. After running a whole bag full of tests, I finally found out how many licks it takes to get to the chocolatey Tootsie-Roll center of a Tootsie Pop.
Turns out it actually is only three, and my teeth still hurt.
Trying to answer life’s unanswered questions is a difficult task, but I claim I know an answer to every question that can be asked. Answers can be as simple as the square root of 17 or as complex as “Huh?”
Regardless, it’s time again to respond to reader questions in another installment of what I like to call, “Stump the columnist.”
Julie from Bountiful, Utah, asks, “Why do leaves change colors and fall off trees every year?”
This is an excellent question. First, I must remark that since I am color blind, I do not see leaf colors the same way normal people do. To me, they look what everyone else calls “blue.” Just kidding.
Actually, the reason leaves turn color and fall is because every year, the weather gets cold. As temperatures drop, Box Elder bugs go away for the winter, but spawn other exoskeletal creatures known as painter ants. Every night when you are asleep, those ants come out to work.
They begin in early October by painting leaves various shades of yellow, red, orange and, for me, blue. Unfortunately, they haven’t stopped using lead-based paint, which causes leaves to fall off trees and die.
Well, that’s a theory I’m working on, anyway. The real reason, I’m told, is because the Republican Party is very anti-environment.
Every year, they forget our nation’s trees, allow them suffer in the cold and conspire to accelerate leaf-loss. Maybe I should go into politics. Vote Green Party in 2008!
Blaine from Montpelier, Idaho, wants to know, “Why did the chicken cross the road?”
To get to the other side of this question, one must first psychoanalyze the mindset of the chicken and question the entire scenario by asking some specific questions.
Was the chicken scared of something? Is the chicken upset about its life? Does the chicken know the boundaries of its existence? Was this supposed “road” really a road or a bridge to another dimension? Did the chicken cross the road, or did it wait for the Earth to rotate under its feet?
Most importantly, how did Colonel Sanders miss that one? Cluck!
Jennifer from Hyde Park, Utah, suggested I answer this question: “Why did ASUSU make brand new ‘Game-Day’ T-shirts this year?”
This whole idea is dumb. Since I know that members of our student government would never strive to leave a “legacy” for themselves and aren’t involved in some marketing scheme, I can only surmise a reason.
Due to overactively acidic underarm sweat glands, members of ASUSU can only still use their old, holey shirts as dust rags. Prove me wrong.
John from Colorado Springs, Colo., poses the last question for today by asking, “Why don’t any letters appear on the number one button on telephones?”
When I lived in Singapore, there weren’t any letters on any telephone buttons. So instead of having catchy infomercial numbers like 1-800-MATTRES (leave off the last “s” for savings), we had to remember a lot of numbers like 65 (country code) 1-800-628-8737. Bloody impossible.
Fortunately, we didn’t have a pesky phone anyway because we lived in huts in the jungle with monkeys. I hear it’s a lot like Nibley.
Letters do make a fun and easy time for remembering your telephone number. Instead of making little Billy memorize something tough like (225) 546-6365, just tell him when in trouble to just “call home, ok?” I hope you can figure that one out.
For some reason, my seven-digit phone number always comes out with weird words, like “GET-BENT,” “BIG-DOLT,” or “BOO-GERS.”
Time to move to Nibley.
Garrett Wheeler is a second bachelor’s student in technical theatre design. Send questions for the next “Stump the columnist” to wheel@cc.usu.edu.