Boneless Chickens: Secret of the Universe?

Wellington Woodrow Wordsworth, III here. When last I visited you, I gave an account of the trite and banal verbiage known as clichés, which can be found here. I was pondering a few other clichéd phrases and musings.

I think today I will wax from the usual satire to the profound. Being serious, while it comes naturally to some, is like climbing a greasy pole for me. While sliding down the pole, never on the way up, is when I can conjur up a deep thought or two. When recondite, my mind wanders the gamut from the secrets of the universe to the enigmatic ringing of the telephone while one is in the shower.

There is plethora of incomprehensible things in everyday life that defy explanation. Some have been heard before many times in our lives. Surely you have heard someone ponder this disturbingly deep riddle: How come we drive on parkways, but park in driveways? Whoa, you might be saying! You thought this question a joke? You weren't expecting anything so abtruse. Well settle back, grab a cup of coffee to settle your nerves, because this ride is going to get a little bumpy.

Surely, you have wondered if fish get thirsty. Or, if we lose weight, where does it go? If it is the most widely used, then why in the heck is it called a No. 2 pencil? Why do 24-hour convenient stores have locks on their doors? Why do the call it rush hour when nothing is moving? If it is my personal banking account, why is someone else keeping it? A fancy umbrella is referred to as a parasol. How come I have never seen just one? For that matter, have I actually seen two?

When I suffer from brain freeze, as I am now, how come my head isn't cold? See what I mean? This stuff is heavy. I am having a sip of coffee before I start another sortie up that pole.

Did you ever wonder what another word for thesaurus might be? When ships are at sea, do they use relative bearing grease? When someone gets butterflies, was there a cocoon inside them? How did it get there? Do substitute dairy products come from substitute dairy animals?

It is okay if your head is spinning. Mine is too. These questions, in and of themselves, are quite enough for the human mind to assimilate, let alone trying to absorb all these mind boggling questions at once.

When the wind stops blowing, just where does it go? Why do they make vacuum cleaners? Are vacuums really all that dirty? If I know I have a pair of dice, but one is missing, I am left with a die. Shouldn't that be a douse? After all, when I see two mice and one races off, I now have a mouse. Maybe that should be a mie? I can understand that when a construction company is putting up a structure, they are building. Now here's the mind blower; they are building a building! Wait a minute, if it is finished why isn't it called a built?

Imagine if there were no hypothetical questions! Now there is a bone to chew on. I might have to do some research to tackle that one.

Well, I will leave you with one more, one that has perplexed me for quite a long time. If Gary Larson had not revealed to us the existence of a Boneless Chicken Ranch, would we today be wondering where boneless chicken comes from?

(This post originally appeared at It Occurred To Me , on 2/1/2005.)

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