Zippers

Our society was obsessed with zippers two decades ago. Think: track suits and jean jackets; both were excellent places to sew, iron, and glue on zippers. I don't know the actual cause of the zipper fad; but I bet it was a conspiracy. Because today everybody uses buttons...except for people who wear pants. Pants typically still have zippers. But they don't have to; pants can also just have buttons.

Will Smith: former zipper addict.

Will Smith: zipper-free since December 31, 1999

The popularity of zippers is a function of the popularity of buttons, the cycle of the moon, and the politics of the current President. I suspect that buttons lost popularity most recently because of hard economic times under President Reagan and endured because of the election of Bill Clinton.

Here's why: I saw a concealed-carry trouser on The Colbert Report that uses a hidden zipper. Like tanks and drone aircraft, zipper technology advances to suit military purposes. Zippers started out bulky and flimsy but were well suited to closing things tightly and concealing their contents. Now, scientists have also engineered them to be invisible to the naked eye.

As our parents may remember, during the 1980's, everyone needed to keep their pockets tightly closed to keep from losing their wallets. Because ATMs were new or nonexistent and you always carried around lots of cash in case the credit unions failed. It was tough times and you couldn't count on the government to bail you out. And we liked it that way.

Now, we also know that gun sales go up when Democratic Presidents are elected. So when Bill Clinton was elected in 1992, people looked to zippers to conceal their newly purchased weapons. Maybe people used zippers just to conceal guns in the privacy of their own homes, or to eventually commit crimes, or just to fantasize about those ideas. But they had guns and needed to conceal them.

In the eight years under President George W. Bush, citizens had little use for the zippers, and buttons became fashionable again. But after three years of President Obama, we are dangerously close to returning to a zipper-infested fascist wasteland. So, please vote this Fall with your fashion sense, not whichever of the other five senses you typically rely on. America depends on your prudence.

Yearn

A combination of periwinkle,

ambiance and wanderlust.

A thumping harmony of bright 

sunrises and sunsets.

Be here while the rain stops;

start again when it's done.

Be at the party but

leave if you're having fun.

Crave a mural on the walls

of this wooden house.

Crave vegan mint chip ice cream

from spotted cows.

Dream storage is infinite and cheap,

larger than a dumpster.

Dreams get forgot

unless they got remembered.

Xanthan

Xanthan gum is a fancy powder used in chocolate syrup, gum, orange juice, and ranch dressing. It's really cool because small amounts of it keep ranch dressing from separating but allow it to flow when you jerk the bottle.

USDA scientists discovered Xanthan gum in the 1950s while testing lots of biopolymers. It's made by special bacteria that ferment sugars; the bacteria are the same ones that cause black rot on broccoli. Although the bacteria don't have to be genetically-modified, there is no Certified Organic Xanthan gum because alcohol is used to create the powder.

You probably eat about 1/2 gram of xanthan gum every day, according to the US Food and Drug Administration. However, people can eat lots of it and it just acts as a strong laxative. And it's also used in oil drilling and fake blood. Thank you, Xanthan gum!

Wrinkles

Today I helped a friend build a compost tumbler. It did not start out as our brightest hour. My friend had selected the plans and materials list and I helped get some things. To my credit, I have helped build bird houses, set pieces, and fences; so I knew which nails to get and the difference between a door stop and a door knob; but I was pretty bad at choosing which screws to use and forgot that we would need a drill bit to create a hole for the tumbler rod. In the process, I realized that my spur-of-the-moment handiness is practically zero. And I felt sub-human.

On the bus ride back from the store I thought about all the other handy things I know practically zero about. Like starching my shirts. I have never starched a shirt. I wouldn't know where to begin. Ok, to be fair, I have watched my Grandma starch a shirt. But I cannot remember why I should care. I own wrinkle-proof shirts. Or I show up with wrinkles sometimes; big wrinkly deal. Because if I run a business or lead a church or assist the President I will definitely find a way to make it happen.

As for the tumbler, in the end, the hardware store guy came over and helped us figure out what to get. And the compost bin is being built for a workshop in the next room right now. Maybe they have a drill bit; maybe they don't. Maybe they have the right screws; maybe they don't. Maybe I know how to pick screws; maybe I don't; big dirty deal. Because if we have to build a compost tumbler we will find a way to make it happen:

Vermiculture

On rainy days like today the worms flood the sidewalks. They vacate their flooded burrows and wriggle to high ground. In St. Louis, there can be so many worms that a child has to dance around them on tippytoe.

Now, after the rains soak in and the sun comes out, there is always an earthworm massacre. The sidewalks are littered. Now, I always believed that these unfortunate worms drowned. I always believed that my tippytoe dance was saving hundreds of worms per year. But the Worm Watch people told me last month that those worms actually died of sunburn. The worms never had a chance. Because the worms that come out don't have any skin pigment so, apparently, they are just wriggling in pain.

Hopefully, the children of Minneapolis will never get to experience the worm dance. Because as early as 11,000 years ago, glaciers scraped across the Upper Midwest and smashed all of the earthworms. So any worms that you find here are introduced or invasive. And according to Worm Watch, earthworms move less than 1/2 mile per 100 years, so they could have only wriggled about 50 miles into Minnesota so far.

I also learned that the rain worms are bad for forests in Minnesota. Because forests here didn't develop with earthworms so the seedlings depend on layers of leaves on the forest floor. But the rain worms eat those leaves and stir up the soil, which makes it hard for forest wildflowers to grow.

And those earthworms are already in Minnesota. People have released them from fishing bait and potted plants without knowing what they do.

I guess I feel a little different about my worm dance now. Worms, your brothers are destroying the beautiful forests. Worms, you better watch where you wriggle because our next dance might not be on tippytoe.