How Does Aspirin Find a Headache? (36 page)

Another reader, David A. Crowder of Miami, Florida, has a bone to pick with another one of our sources, who in
Do Penguins Have Knees?
claimed that surge protectors can protect your VCR from damage during lightning storms
:

While we’re on the subject of things technological, Howard L. Helman of Manhattan Beach, California, rightfully comments that our discussion of “Where do computer files and programs go when they are erased?” was correct for MS-DOS machines but not necessarily for other operating systems
:

While we’re speaking of computers, we heard from Harold Gaines of St. Louis, Missouri
:

In
When Did Wild Poodles Roam the Earth?
we quoted an official of the American Banking Association who stated that the little pieces of white paper attached to the bottom of our checks were inserted when a typist made a mistake, and that these MICR numbers cannot be erased. The answer was correct as far as it goes, but reader Jeff Reese of Mosinee, Wisconsin, works for a company that sells a solvent that does erase those little numbers on the bottom of the check. He also adds that some banks use small stickers in lieu of a strip that runs along the bottom of the entire check
.

We told you in
Poodles
that many drivers in cold climates wire cardboard to their grills to keep cold air from entering the engine. But one reader, Bruce Hyman of Short Hills, New Jersey, added some “lore” on the subject
:

But not all our readers were concerned with technological Imponderables. Scott McDougall of Boise, Idaho, wanted to add another reason why dance studios are so often located on the second floor, a weighty question we tangled with in
Do Penguins Have Knees?

Speaking of movement, we received a long letter from Rick Ballard of East Lansing, Michigan, who says that he logs about 35,000 miles per year. He wanted to add to our discussion of why traffic on highways tends to clump together in bunches, which we discussed in
Why Do Dogs Have Wet Noses?

 

     • Once you have a bunch, it tends to stay a bunch because passing is physically more difficult for the faster cars behind. Some drivers would rather tailgate than pass. Truck convoys are the prime example. They effectively change two lanes into one, and inevitably increase bunching. The faster cars have to be in the passing lane longer just to get around….

     • Cruise control is a mixed factor. It definitely contributes to extended time in the passing lane. Many cars will c-r-e-e-p around the slower car because they are unwilling to speed up slightly to complete their pass. Likewise, they are hesitant to go back into the right lane when passing a spaced string of traffic, because they may have to tap the brakes to wait for a faster car before they can pass the next car ahead. So instead, they continue passing a 63-mph string of traffic at 64 mph, blissfully ignoring the bunch growing behind them. But cruise control may also reduce bunching, by creating a disincentive to tailgate.

     • Drivers with radar detectors, and other fast drivers, contribute to bunching. Cars will frequently speed up to tag behind faster cars (especially with radar detectors) because they assume that if there is a speed trap, the driver ahead will either slow down or will be the one ticketed.

 

The psychology of drivers is an elusive one, indeed, but few humans are as fragile as the expectant father. Sandra Stout of Colonial Heights, Virginia, felt that we missed the boat in our discussion in
When Did Poodles Roam the Earth?
of why you see folks boiling water during home deliveries in movies and television
.

 

     Your answer was way off the mark. It has nothing to do with sterilizing things. I noticed that both of the experts you quoted were males, and you being male, the “sterilization theory” made sense. That is because the true purpose of the water boiling is for your gender.

     When a baby is delivered at home, the husband, under normal conditions, becomes concerned about the amount of pain his wife is in and wants to help as much as possible. What he ends up doing is getting underfoot. So the midwife or female in charge will send the male, or in some cases the other children in the family, to boil some water so that he is out of the way but feels as if he is being helpful. That is why you never see the water—it never is used for anything.

 

More male bashing, heh. Doesn’t anyone love us? Well, we guess Karen Friend of Baltimore, Maryland, loves us, sort of
:

 

     I’m a big fan of yours. Although I have no practical knowledge, I’ve read all your books and can consequently impress hordes of people at cocktail parties.

 

Gee, Karen, there’s nothing you could possibly say that would make us prouder
.

Speaking of pride, we have to eat ours, for we made a misstatement in
When Did Wild Poodles Roam the Earth?
We stated that one of the reasons why horses might not vomit is because they must eat at a virtually nonstop pace to derive proper nutrition. We heard from veterinarian Robert E. Habel, one of the foremost ungulate specialists on the planet
:

 

     The horse does not have to keep its stomach full; it has a capacious intestine and does not have to eat continuously, as thousands of trail riders could tell you.

     My theory is that the main difference between the vomiters and the nonvomiters (other than alcohol consumption) may be in the brain, where the vomiting reaction center is located. Dogs and people may have evolved this protective mechanism because they swallow lots of nasty things (as you point out) that need to be vomited. Cows and horses don’t.

 

And while we are eating crow (but not vomiting it), may we apologize for a silly error in
Poodles?
In an offhand analogy in our discussion of why people don’t wear hats as often as they used to, we contrasted the impact of John F. Kennedy’s hatless inaugural with the popularity of the undershirt after Clark Gable flaunted one in
It Happened One Night.
We meant, of course, to say that Gable appeared without an undershirt and that sales of the apparel quickly plummeted (or so the legend goes). We were surprised that only two readers, Arnold Hecht of Greensboro, North Carolina, and Charles Raphael of Montreal, Quebec, wrote to nail us on what may be our most ridiculous mistake since we transposed the meanings of “diameter” and “circumference” in our first book
, Imponderables.

Hmmm. Now we seem to be self-bashing. Let’s escape to the comfort of hearing from some readers theorizing about perennial Imponderables. You still seem to want to talk about why there are dents on the top of cowboy hats, which we first discussed in
Do Penguins Have Knees?
Daniel Coppersmith of Mishawaka, Indiana, weighs in with an interesting theory
:

 

     I have always believed that the dent was to allow rainwater to drain off the hat. If the hat were flat, water would stand on top of the hat and increase the chances of the water soaking in and leaking on the head of the cowboy. The front of a properly worn cowboy hat has a lip on the front brim. This keeps the water rolling off the top of the hat from splashing onto the face of the wearer.

 

We always thought the brim was more important for keeping the sun out of the eyes, and there’s no particular reason why a cowboy hat couldn’t have a rounded top. But since you didn’t bash us, we’re hardly going to insult you. Nor will we bad-mouth John A. Steer of Durham, North Carolina, whose surname lends him special qualification to theorize about cowboy hats
:

 

     Here is another approach: How about convenience? In the days when cowboy hats were designed nearly all men, even cowboys, behaved as gentlemen should and tipped their hats on meeting and greeting ladies.

     In the East at that time, men wore derbies, homburgs, and even top hats. These all have stiff brims; thus, without a dent to grab hold of, they could still easily tip their hats. The cowboys’ rough life required a soft hat that could be knocked back into shape when required—for some that may have been often. The dent was their hat handle.

 

We’re almost through the Letters section, but there seems to be something missing. What could it possibly be? Oh, of course. A discussion of boots on the top of ranchers’ fenceposts. It’s with a slowly trickling tear down the side of one cheek that we announce that this is the first year since the publication of
Why Do Clocks Run Clockwise?
that we received no new theories about the resons for their appearance. But at least Robert M. Brown of Bellevue, Washington, provided us with an exciting new sighting. Robert sent us a clip from his local paper, the
Journal American,
in which reporter Liz Enbysk profiles Warren Oltmann, whose boots are displayed on Highway 203 south of Carnation, Washington
:

 

     “If I can make one person smile per day I figure I’ve done something good,” Oltmann figures. Besides, what else would you do with seven pairs of worn-out boots?

 

We feel the same way. If we can make one person smile per day, we’re happy. Strike that. We’ll settle for one living thing and/or one feline per day. We received this note from Catherine Greene, a ninth-grader from Silver Spring, Maryland
:

 

     I adore your books, and so does my cat, Frances. She sits in my lap and pretends to read your books while I read them!

 

Better this way, Catherine, than if Frances read the books and you pretended to read them
.

Having contended already in this book with the neverending debate about why we find one shoe on the side of the road so often, we are loath to open up the following can of worms. Still, we couldn’t resist sharing this related conundrum, sent to us by Charlene Ingulfsen of Asheville, North Carolina:

 

     Why do I so often see loops of audio cassette tape beside the road? I’ve never lost a tape out the window of my car, but maybe that’s the way others dispose of their tapes.

     Something else I’ve noticed—I recently moved to North Carolina from Oklahoma. Loops of tape by the roadside aren’t as common here as they were in Oklahoma and Texas. I wonder why. But I spent several months in Norway, and I often saw tape on the roadside in that lovely country as well.

 

Off the top of our head, Charlene, wouldn’t it seem most likely that you are seeing the remnants of cassettes that were jammed in auto cassette decks? But do you expect us to know about the regional variations in audio cassette side-of-the-road dumping? Golly, do you think we are everywhere? Well, come to think of it, at least one reader, Ken Giesbers of Seattle, Washington, does think we’re everywhere:

 

     You live in New York City. HarperCollins Publishers are based in New York City. You conducted a survey of Philadelphia bakeries in response to the Imponderable in
When Did Wild Poodles Roam the Earth?
about seven layer cakes. So why do we send our Imponderables to Los Angeles? Are you omnipresent?

 

We’ve been reluctant to admit it until know, Ken, but yes indeed, we are omnipresent. It’s hard work, being omnipresent, but we will stop at nothing to gather knowledge in our ever-vigilant fight to stamp out Imponderability. As a matter of fact, we have to sign off right now so that we can fight the good fight
.

So have a safe and happy year, readers. And please behave: We can check up on you. Don’t you remember? We’re omnipresent
.