How Does Aspirin Find a Headache?

by David Feldman

  Although a young officer might want to project machismo, we’re guessing that other factors are more important. Most of the military and police officers we’ve met, despite the visual image they project, want to express their individuality as persons. Confronted with strict controls over what they can wear and how they can look, a mustache becomes a way to stand out from the crowd. Many cops concurred, among them Ohio police officer Mike Foley:

  We have to have short hair and no beard. The only allowance for any “style” is a mustache. Most cops (after a few years) want to look like something other than a boy scout, so they grow one. Plus, it keeps the bosses mad when you don’t trim it.

  Foley’s combination of humor and mild rebellion was typical of almost all of the letters we received from police officers. Noncop Bob Kowalski of Detroit, Michigan, aptly summarizes the feelings of many police officers who wrote us:

  Perhaps policemen would not be so keen to have mustaches if police departments weren’t so keen on banning them! The old forbidden fruit…

  And we were moved by this note from the policeman’s bulletin board on Prodigy Service. Leo Martin raises a point we had not considered—some cops might tire of looking like cops:

  I am a cop out in northern California, and I’ve had hair growing from my lip up to my nose for most of my life. It started in the Marine Corps, where the only facial hair you could have was a “stache.”

  Most police departments have the same policy. I think growing a mustache makes us feel and look more like regular people and less like cops.

  We’re faced with a paradox. Cops grow mustaches to express their individuality, yet so many cops wear them that it defeats the purpose. This irony was not lost on our favorite self-examination, from admitted baby face Steven J. Schmidt of Covington, Kentucky:

  As a mustache wearer for eighteen of my nineteen years as a policeman, I have some insight into the question. The obvious answer to this Frustable is, “Because they can.” Although police departments aren’t as paramilitary as they used to be, most policemen cannot wear beards or grow their hair long. A mustache, therefore, becomes a symbol of their individuality.

  I know that makes about as much sense as all the people in the 1960s who grew their hair long to demonstrate their “individuality,” but there it is. You might notice that a lot of retired policemen and discharged servicemen grow their hair long or grow a beard right after leaving “uniformed” service “just because they can.” Once the novelty wears off, they revert to what’s comfortable for them.

  Schmidt reports that once he turned forty, “I didn’t need the mustache to look older anymore. In fact, I cut it off to look younger.”

  As we mentioned, the cops we heard from demonstrated quite a sense of humor. Here are some of the, er, more unusual solutions to this Frustable:

  I have a “stache” just because it gives me something to do while I drive around for eight hours. You can twist it and pull it for eight hours and you smoke fewer cigarettes. Sounds silly but it works for me. (Bill Pador, Jr., New Jersey)

  I like to make my partner feel like I’m one of him. You may not realize that I’m referring to my partner, Max, who is a horse, and also has hair around his lips. (Christopher Landry, New Orleans, Louisiana)

  Now that you mention it, my mustache probably came from off the top of my head. (Greg Wilson, Delaware)

  I guess it was so my kids could pull it when it was time to get up for work. (Alan Levine, Philadelphia)

  And, last but not least,

  You can lick the doughnut powder off a mustache for hours after the last coffee break—and it still tastes good. I usually cut mine off in summer because if I don’t, everyone knows I’ve been eating ice cream. Also, a “stache” may act as the last air filter in the air we sometimes have to breathe—I go home and hose it out. Lastly, if a catfish can have one, so can I. (William Howe, IV, Prodigy Service)

  Submitted by Steve Propes of Long Beach, California. Thanks also to Laura Arvidson of Westville, Indiana, and Brad Huddleston of Bakersfield, California.

  A complimentary book goes to Steven J. Schmidt of Covington, Kentucky. Thanks to all the officers from the Police Topic on the Prodigy Service.

  The Frustables That Will Not Die

  Imponderables readers don’t give up. Even though we have partially flushed out the frustration posed by the Frustables in other books, readers want to leave no stone unturned. Your most recent contributions to the demolition of past Frustables are presented here.

  Please remember we do not have the space to review all the theories we’ve already advanced; this section is meant as a supplement, not a substitute, for our discussions in previous books.

  Frustables First Posed in Why Do Clocks Run Clockwise? and First Discussed in When Do Fish Sleep?

  FRUSTABLE 1: Why do you so often see one shoe lying on the side of the road?

  In the past, we’ve heard from mostly urban SSS (single-shoe syndrome) theorists. But there has been a recent rash of sightings in more bucolic settings, like this one from Donald Mueggenborg of Lemont, Illinois:

  We marathon canoe racers often get our feet wet. One year, it became fashionable to tie our wet shoes to the rear thwart when transporting canoes. The shoes not only dried out but became sort of a sign of fellowship. Often, one shoe would become untied and fall off.

  Is there any good way to use one tennis shoe?

  Sure, if you are Alyssa Constantine, of New York City. Alyssa lives in a woodsy area of Queens, where hikes and field trips are often conducted by nearby schools, with

  …students carry bulging backpacks, heavy sleeping bags, and a tote full of life’s necessities. Every forty minutes or so, the teacher allows students to take off their shoes and pamper their aching feet.

  Every day, I come out and collect forgotten, mateless shoes, lost in the sea of jackets, totes, sleeping bags, etc. I now have at least one hundred different shoes in my basement.

  One hundred shoes in the basement? Whatever happened to collecting dolls? Or stamps? We still don’t think Alyssa’s stash is sufficient to explain the widespread sightings of single shoes on the road. Perhaps the answer could lie in perverse camp counselors? We heard this startling testimony from Mary Beth MacIsaac, from beautiful Cape Breton Island, Nova Scotia:

  When I was nine (that was only two years ago), I went to Brownie camp. They had a contest among the cabin mothers to see who could kick off their shoes the farthest. Many of them lost the shoe that they had kicked off. If every Brownie and scout camp did that every year, you can just imagine how many shoes that is.

  The mind shudders.

  But American citizen Regina Earl thinks that the SSS conspiracy is broader than infiltrating scout camps. Regina has recently come back from a stint in Japan, where she saw an ominous shoe commercial, featuring Charlie Sheen, of all people:

  Charlie Sheen is shown lying in the center of a long, deserted road holding one shoe, while a girl drives away in a red convertible holding the other. I know this doesn’t provide any answers, but it shows Frustables jumping international borders.

  That’s okay, Regina. We must confront the scope of a problem before we can solve it. In this spirit, Wayland Kwock of Aiea, Hawaii, was brave enough to share a harrowing article found in the November 1992 Scientific American, announcing that on May 27, 1990, a freighter dumped five shipping containers containing eighty thousand Nike shoes into the waters of the Pacific Northwest.

  Several scientists decided that the accident afforded them a unique opportunity to study ocean drift. At last report, some of the shoes are heading for Japan (sorry, too late to retrieve them, Regina). Amazingly enough, none of the scientists tracked how many Nikes ended up, singly, on the side of a road.

  FRUSTABLE 2: Why are buttons on men’s shirts and jackets arranged differently from those on women’s shirts?

  We are still receiving loads of mail on this button Frustable. Most people debate the relative merits of what we’ve already published. But we did recei
ve one new theory this year from Terri Longwell of Richland, Washington:

  Unless I was lied to at a young age, I learned the answer to this question as a sophomore in my high school American history class. The answer dates back to the garment sweat shops in the days before unions. The “piece workers” were paid more for sewing women’s garments than for men’s…. To separate the men’s blouses from the women’s blouses, which in those days were similar, the buttons were sewn on opposite sides…. The employees who were favored by management got the better, more high-paying pieces, which were the women’s blouses.

  Terri, we think you were probably “lied to.” In what era were women’s blouses indistinguishable from men’s shirts? Weren’t the collars totally different?

  FRUSTABLE 4: Why do the English drive on the left and most other countries on the right?

  Readers can’t stop debating this Frustable, either. We have nothing new to say, other than that we despair of ever getting a definitive answer. If you want to become more informed, if perhaps more confused, you might want to read a whole book on the subject: The Rule of the Road: An International Guide to History and Practice, written by Peter Kincaid (Greenwood Press, 1986). Thanks to reader John P. Hersh of Concord, Massachusetts, for recommending it.

  Frustables First Posed in When Do Fish Sleep? and First Discussed in Why Do Dogs Have Wet Noses?

  FRUSTABLE 6: Why do so many people save National Geographics and then never look at them again?

  Mike Teige of Seattle, Washington, tipped us off to the latest literary take on this (literally) weighty subject. In his 1992 book Clutter Control, cleaning expert Jeff Campbell devotes an entire chapter to the topic of controlling rampant National Geographic proliferation. Campbell’s chapter heading, “They seem to be everywhere,” echoes the sentiment that inspired this Frustable:

  As of September 1991 there were approximately 3.784 billion copies of National Geographic in print, and just about every one of them is still in somebody’s garage.

  Unfortunately, Campbell provides many more tips about how to get rid of the magazines than theories about why we didn’t throw them away in the first place. Still, if Campbell can inspire enough people to get off their duffs and recycle National Geographic, we could at least eradicate the intellectual clutter created by this Frustable.

  FRUSTABLE 7: Why do people, especially kids, tend to stick their tongues out when concentrating?

  Reader James D. Kilchenman of Toledo, Ohio, was kind enough to pass on the information that in his recent book, Babywatching, anthropologist Desmond Morris weighed in on our debate about this Frustable. Morris notes that children, when rejecting food (either solid, a bottle, or mother’s breast), stick out their tongues to push away the food source.

  Morris believes that sticking out the tongue is a universal rejection signal, even when used unconsciously. When an adult is concentrating on a difficult task and sticks out the tongue,

  the tongue is behaving just as it did when, in infancy, it rejected an insistent parent offering food. The message now, as then, is the same, namely: “please leave me in peace.”

  While we think that the physiological theory presented in Why Do Dogs Have Wet Noses? is compelling, Morris’s explanation also makes some sense. But we were also taken aback by a letter from reader Mark McGrew of Bucyrus, Ohio, who offers an alternative:

  Human kids are not the only kids to stick out their tongues when they are trying to concentrate. In the Jane Goodall documentary “People of the Forest,” you can see a young chimpanzee trying to twirl around, which he can do well only after he begins sticking out his tongue. Perhaps we simply inherited the practice from them.

  Frustables First Posed in Why Do Dogs Have Wet Noses? and First Discussed in Do Penguins Have Knees?

  FRUSTABLE 1: Does anyone really like fruitcake?

  We’d like to think that we have been duly modest in boasting about attempts to edify our readers. After all, we’re not dealing with metaphysics here. Still, every once in a while, we receive a letter that lets us know we have made a profound difference in someone’s life. We received a moving letter from Howie Saaristo of Norfolk, Massachusetts, indicating that our modest efforts have changed his life unalterably for the better:

  For years I ordered and gave away more than a dozen fruitcakes at Christmas. Then I read that you asserted that most people do not like fruitcake. I was completely astonished! I like fruitcake so much that such a thought had never occurred to me.

  After some thought, I decided that I had better ascertain the truth. I called each one of my former recipients and told them what I had read and pleaded with each to tell me the truth.

  Out of the lot, it turned out that I was the only one who really liked the stuff. The others just suffered in silence. I put a stop to giving them away. What a shame they don’t know what they are missing!

  After such a great start, Howie, we’re worried about that last sentence. We suggest a local twelve-step program.

  According to Julia Ecklar of Monroeville, Pennsylvania, the answer to whether anyone really likes fruitcake is: “Yes, but only when the fruitcake aficionado has a physical problem.” Julia can think of only two possible reasons for her father’s strange predilection: One, he loves rum, particularly hot buttered rum. Many fruitcakes contain rum, which, as Ecklar so felicitously puts it, supplies the cake with “its strong, odious flavor.” But we’re more concerned with her second explanation:

  My father has no sense of smell. As far as I know, he never did, and it has certainly affected his ability to taste…. This lack of taste discrimination might also have contributed to his liking of fruitcake.

  We’re a little upset at the Ecklar extended family for taking advantage of his handicap, for Ecklar reports:

  When I was a kid, all our relatives knew that giving fruitcake to my father would just make his holiday; all our friends knew that they could dispose of unwanted fruitcakes by giving them to us.

  Christopher K. Degnan of Whitefield, New Hampshire, theorizes that the reason fruitcake is so unpalatable is that most cakes withhold the crucial ingredient: pork. Christopher shared with us a recipe contained in a book called Vermont Cooking. The recipe for two loaves includes the usual nuts, molasses, raisins, fruits, eggs, and sugar, as well as “one cup of chopped pork (all fat).” The mind reels.

  FRUSTABLE 4: Where, exactly, did the expression “blue plate special” come from?

  Several correspondents were aghast at the readers quoted in When Did Wild Poodles Roam the Earth? who doubted that blue plates were ever actually used in restaurants. Our favorite was Dave Rutherford of Holcomb, New York, who sent us a color snapshot of a classic diner, the Miss Albany Diner in Albany, New York. Right next to the name on the sign above the door was another sign: “Blue Plate Specials.” Dave reports that specials advertised on the sign “were and continue to be served on blue plates.” Judy Stuart of DeLand, Florida, enclosed an article about the blue willow plates we wrote about in our initial discussion of this topic in Do Penguins Have Knees? But Judy has more concrete evidence that blue plates were used in restaurants: Her husband, Dick, worked in diners in the late 1930s and early 1940s and served many a meal on blue plates.

  Indeed, we heard from several readers who collect blue willow china. We particularly enjoyed a long discussion by Pat Kaniarz of Harbor Springs, Michigan. Kaniarz confirms that the earliest blue and white china was imported, appropriately enough, from China, and was all hand painted.

  With the advent of the Industrial Revolution, English potters figured out how to transfer print designs stolen from uncopyrighted Chinese design. Eventually, the English mass-produced willow patterns in a myriad of colors, but blue and white was always the most popular.

  Most blue plate specials were served on divided dishes called “grill plates.” According to Kaniarz:

  Those grill plates, once so inexpensive that restaurants let low-paid dishwashers handle them, now are offered in antique shops at twenty to thirty dollars each.
Lots of restaurants used blue willow, although not all confined their use to the grill plates.

  The restaurant ware is very collectible. Some of us who are hooked on blue willow (we have a newsletter called “The Willow Word” that is subtitled “The Newspaper for People Addicted to Willow-Pattern China”) collect only the restaurant ware. Because it was made for heavy use, a lot of it has survived in pretty good condition.

  In the three books since Why Do Dogs Have Wet Noses?, we have pieced together the origin of the blue plate special, but our initial target still eludes us. We still haven’t found the restaurant that initiated or inspired the expression.