A Quiz for Your Protection.

On January 1, 2007, I resolved to stop "talking out of my butt." With greater frequency, I'd been hearing those closest to me saying things like,'"Dude, quit speaking out of your ass" or "Hey, butt clown, you don't know what the hell you're talking about."

Those daughters of mine—such pistols.

Yeah, anyway, back on New Years' Day of Ot Seven, I announced to a skeptical audience that I would only issue public proclamations that were backed by facts.

It had to happen. My kids were getting older and calling me out on stuff. No more could I insert a valuable lesson through a creative web of deceit. For instance, when one of my darlings asked me why asparagus made her pee smell weird, I could no longer make something up, like "It's because you don't eat enough vegetables. It's nature's way of showing your body how profoundly toxic it is. If I were you, I'd stop inhaling Goldfish and start gnawing on kale hunks before your little kidneys turn into petite baggies of gooey scar tissue...

"...there, there, stop crying, honey. Daddy's just the messenger."

Actually, asparagus contains a sulfur compound called mercaptan, which is also found in onions, garlic, rotten eggs and the secretions of skunks. The alluring bouquet occurs when mercaptan is broken down by enzymes in your digestive tract.

I learned that on the internet, another reason why it's so much harder to pull the wool over the eyes of innocents these days. And that's why I've decided to turn this thing around, to spin the world wide interwebbernet's power into a delicious digital smoothie that quenches our thirst for knowledge and dispels the half-cocked claims of the egomaniacal know-it-alls...like me.

I've assembled a multiple choice quiz. After racking my brain for questions whose answers I may be highly tempted to surgically extract from my bottom, I've accumulated a few that are designed to test your bullshit meter. Good luck to you, friend.

The stuff doesn't have grapes or nuts in them, so why the heck are they called "Grape Nuts?"

a) The man at Post who developed the recipe was a bachelor who'd been down on his "luck" for a while. Rather than the obvious moniker of "Blue Balls," he took a more subtle tack, dubbing them "Grape Nuts."

b) The recipe was actually Hungarian in origin. Since a literal translation would have been "Cardboard Eye Crust," the folks at Post chose to finesse the title.

c) The original formula for Grape-Nuts called for grape sugar, which is composed mostly of glucose, unlike most other sugar sources and food sweeteners which are principally sucrose.

d) The name arose during the 1960s as part of the United States Army's LSD cereal naming project.


Since this popular website features no advertising, how does Craigslist make money?

a) It doesn't. That guy Craig is just super rich and nice.

b) Read the fine print. Once a year, Craigslist charges a random user one billion dollars to post an entry.

c) Craigslist makes money by charging a $10 fee for brokered apartment listings in New York City, $75 for job listings in San Francisco and charges $25 for job postings in six of its largest U.S. markets. This website also charges $10 (in the US) for an ad that comes under the category "therapeutic services." Craigslist charges $5 for re-posting an ad that is live.

d) That's actually Craig himself selling you that couch he found soaked and moldy on the curb. One word—volume.


Why do humans have toenails?

a) So we can tell ourselves after she breaks up with us that sure, she was beautiful, smart and really cool, but her freaking toenails looked like curry-stained Tupperware lids.

b) In 1937, Great Grandmother Zelda Kardashian purchased human toenail rights, thereby assuring the family nail polish empire for centuries to come.

c) Toenails have no practical function; they're an evolutionary leftover.

d) They're a natural reminder to maintain our health. If we can't reach our toenails, we're too fat and will die soon. Look it up, it's what happened to the Romans.

Are you ready for the answers?

All are option "c"! Ha! Always pick "c," right? Do you understand, now, how easy it is to spin highly believable answers out of whole cloth? I'm thinking that probably out of those three questions, you were lucky to get one.

Don't be bamboozled by know-it-all charlatans. As Ronald Reagan once said, during the height of his dementia, "Trust, but verify."

You're welcome.

The day I stopped talking out of my butt

I've got a problem.

Well, let me rephrase that—I used to have a problem, but it's much better now.

Here's the problem: I talk out of my butt.

Over the years, I've had a tendency to "guess" the answers to questions, rather than researching them or simply stating, "I don't know."  I used to get away with it with my daughters, mostly because they were too young to challenge me, but now, all three of the women in my house tend to call a bluff when they see it.

I think it's a little bit of a guy thing and a little bit of a dad thing. We want to be experts, especially with our children. In the past, one of my kids might have asked me, "Dad, what's that thing they measure my foot with when we buy shoes?" Since I work in the fashion industry, I'd be compelled to know the answer even though I didn't know the answer.

"Oh, that's a Metallic Instep Calibration Bob," I would reply, "because it's made of metal and it measures your foot and...um...it was invented by a guy named Bob."

As many of us know, it's called a Brannock Device.

Another past inquiry may have been, "Dad, why don't chickens fly?" Again, rather than looking it up, I'd just say, "Because God wanted to eliminate one step in the process of getting them into our burritos."

I put the brakes on the Talking Out of My Butt Era on January 1, 2007, when I resolved to end this nasty habit for the new year and renew the resolution each following year into perpetuity. It's gone fairly well. In fact, just to compare and contrast, here are some questions and answers, both before and after resolution day:

Question: "Dad, what's that piece of skin at the back of your throat that dangles down?"

Answer, prior to January 1, 2007: "Well, honey, you answered your own question. Depending on your gender, that's either a Jane- or a Jimdangler. It's for brushing off food so it goes down cleanly."

Answer, after January 1, 2007: "Well, honey, that's called a uvula. The uvula plays a key role in the articulation of the sound of the human voice to form the sounds of speech."

Question: "Dad, why do you drink so much coffee?"

Answer, prior to January 1, 2007: "Because, honey, I came down with scurvy as a deck hand on a long cruise, and the Vitamin C in the java keeps me healthy."

Answer, after January 1, 2007: "Because, honey, if I don't, I'll get a throbbing headache which will cause me to drive over lots of road turtles and yell at loud birds."

Question: "Dad, what's Viagra?"

Answer, prior to January 1, 2007: "You know, I'm not sure."

Answer, after January 1, 2007: "Ask your mom."

Question: "Dad, why does your hair keep getting grayer?"

Answer, prior to January 1, 2007: "Because, honey, I made a deal with Satan that for each new gray hair on my head, you will receive one additional day of earthly, self-absorbed bliss."

Answer, after January 1, 2007: "Because, honey, as people age, the pigment cells in their hair follicles gradually die."

So there you have it. I'm now a straight shooter when it comes to answering the tough questions. And yes, Santa is real.