Published: October 11, 2008 08:28 pm         

Things curious people really want to know

Curiosity killed the cat and it’s not always kind to human beings either.

My own experience with curiosity (some may call it nosiness) has been mixed. I remember back when I was eight or 10 and fell in love with angel hair. Not the real thing, of course, but the spun-glass version that people started wrapping around their Christmas trees at the time. I had never seen it before, and it took me by storm. After it spent the season on our tree, I couldn’t bear to see it put away for the year. I was curious to know what it would be like if I took it to bed with me! I would nestle into it, and bury my nose in its electric softness, and inhale the otherworldly sprucey smell of it and just generally revel in its delights.

It was a night from hell. Something like sleeping between sheets of needles. And of course, I was too dumb to figure it out right away, and the more it prickled the more I nestled and snuggled into it. The worst of it was, I hadn’t told my parents about my grand plan so I couldn’t wake them up in the middle of the night and start in on it, when obviously it was my own stupidity that had started the whole thing.

When it doesn’t kill you, curiosity will often teach you a lesson.

In this case it was, Maude, you’re a jerk. No, no that’s too harsh — it was more like, Maude, when you get a bright idea, consult with your elders. (Not that I always did, after that — but I was careful to get across the moral when my own kids came along. Which is, so often, when such lessons really sink in on a person.)

Here’s another thing I’m curious about; perhaps you can help me, especially if you’re the weather man. On Saturday, Sept. 20, 2008, the following weather predictions appeared on the back of the Cumberland Times-News front section: “Monday, Mostly sunny and nice; Tuesday, Mostly sunny and nice; Wednesday, Mostly sunny and pleasant.” The predicted highs were 72, 70 and 70. The predicted lows were 50, 50 and 50. What I was curious about was this: What’s the difference between “nice” and “pleasant?” What made it pleasant on Wednesday but only nice on Monday and Tuesday? (Or, if you prefer, nice on Monday and Tuesday but only pleasant on Wednesday?) I’m sure there is an answer to this; I just can’t think of it at the moment.

If curiosity sometimes kills, there are times when, I believe, it also keeps one alive. I know that, before the 2000s settled in, I was eternally curious to know whether people would call them the “two thousands” or the “twenty hundreds.” I believe that my curiosity kept me alive to find out that, for this first decade, it would be “two thousand.” (We call this year, “two thousand and eight,” not “twenty eight.”) Ah, but times change. Now I am looking ahead to finding out what happens two years from now. My theory is that, from then on, we will start referring to the date as “twenty ten (eleven, twelve, etc), not “two thousand ten.” The catch is I have to stick around to find out. Oh well. Those are the sacrifices one makes for having a curious mind.

Of course, there are some curiosities that really don’t need to be satisfied for some. One of these (for me, not you, maybe, and that’s okay, honest, that’s okay) was the “8-foot-high and 20-foot-long Super Colon,” an American Cancer Society inflatable displayed June 13 at Southern High School. As reported in the May 31 Cumberland Times-News, “You can walk through it and see what the doctor sees,” when performing colonoscopies. Why am I not that curious?

I am also somewhat curious about the mind that shaves the scalp and grows often really scruffy hair on the opposite end of the head, but that’s a guy thing, I guess. (I’ve been tempted to write a column about guyness, but half of my readers is a guy, so I’m steering clear of that one.)

Just last Sunday I got very curious indeed about that practice I often rail against in football, when the Redskins knelt on the ball a whole minute and a half before the game ended, with only two points difference in the score. Why is that allowed? In a minute and a half, anything can happen, fumbles or flukes, and it shouldn’t be allowed, because the whole joy of football is its unexpectedness. Again, backed by all the power of my position as a part-time columnist on the Cumberland Times-News, I call for a change in the rules of football to forbid any team to call itself the victor before it wins the victory. (And I’m a Redskins fan! Hail to the Redskins!)

Finally, here’s another thing I’d like to find out about. Am I indeed the very first person in history whose new fluorescent bulb has burned out? I suspect I am. They only came in about three or four years ago, and are supposed to last at least five years. The one in my dining room light (which is left on much of every day) just gradually ebbed out last week, and I do believe I may be the first ever to outlast one of these new boons to mankind. I’ve always wanted to know what it would be like to be the first in history to experience something.

Just curious, I guess.

Maude McDaniel is a Cumberland freelance writer. Her column appears in the Times-News on alternate Sundays.