BEAUTY SHOP TALK

by

Vicki Charmaine Bunch

Yesterday a guy phoned in to Roy's House and Garden Show to talk about a problem with his pecan trees. "I keep finding pieces of shell in my yard. Could this have something to do with all the flies around town?" he asked.

"Nope," said Roy. "Their teeth are too small."

The next caller was Earlene Whitehead from the Donut Den. "Last year when Ralph's back was acting up, we were having that El Nino. Is this a good time to plant Ligustrums?"

"I never give medical advice, Ma'am," Roy said. "Next call."

It was me. "There's a mouse nesting in the pile of filth in my husband Sonny's closet," I said. "In school, I remember, they told us mice are spontaneously generated by hair balls and toe grime. Does it work with hamsters too?"

The line went dead, which is a shame because I had been thinking hamsters could bring in some good Christmas cash. Anyway, according to the Channel 7 News, Roy took hostages and quit the radio show, saying something about "if ignorance is bliss, how come these idiots bother to call?"

The road to knowledge is littered with the broken test tubes of guys like Roy. As I often say, being practically a genius is a curse. Nobody understands you and it's hard to find professor hats. It's good to be skeptical, but not too skeptical. To question--say--not everything but every other thing. Roy Roberts doubted the causal relationship between the dust and the mouse. Such a path leads to nihilism and utter chaos, not to mention unemployment.

Rational thought isn't for everyone. Lots of people seek the comfort of a pre-ordained universe. They would gladly relinquish free will for the certitude of pat answers and astrological prognostication.

My grandfather wasted thirty years trying to become a ballet dancer after a fortune teller told him it was meant to be. He did pirouettes from dusk till dawn, then went to his job as a mechanic. He rented the high school gym for his very first dance recital, after which our grandmother took to wearing a wrestler's mask with only her nose poking through so she could breathe.

My siblings and I were the butt of cruel jokes and my brother briefly joined the circus. I took a different approach. Rejecting the fortune teller's prediction that I would be a dental hygienist, I vowed to chart my own destiny. Along with other "brains" on the road to the 21st century, I'm looking for the discovery that will put my name in the creation science textbooks.

I employ a technique called the Bunch Method which establishes a causal relationship between any two observations, no matter how disparate. When I got pregnant with Stormy, I assumed it was because I accidentally drank out of the same beer as my sister Kathy who breeds like a rabbit. By the time I had Destinee, I knew better. I quit swallowing watermelon seeds and I haven't gotten pregnant since.

Research is the scientist's friend even if it means a few botched projects such as people that are half human, half cockroach. (Also--Capri pants, blue eye shadow and spray-on hair.) Remarkably, until the 1970's, American schoolchildren were taught that little boys are made of snips and snails and puppy dog tails because no one was willing to cut off a dog's tail to test the hypothesis.

My latest experiment involves soda pop, recently added to the list of national no-nos. I observed that whenever I drink grape soda, my husband Sonny's feet stink. I decided to determine whether my soda made Sonny's feet stink or the stench of his feet made me crave soda pop. After drinking a lot of pop, I concluded that we go through a case of grape a day because Sonny's feet always stink. No wonder over half of all Americans are obese!

You couldn't ask for a more timely and relevant discovery but somebody like Roy would probably criticize my research--which is why you won't be seeing his picture in any creation science textbook.