A Menagerie of Facts

Sometimes I am just a veritable fountain of useless information. And it scares me.

For example, did you know that a cat has 32 muscles in each ear? I knew that. That’s why it can turn its ears from forward to back, left to right, lay them against its head, and do all kinds of stuff with its ears that we “superior” humans can’t do.

Snails can sleep for three years. Did you know that? I think it’s amazing. The most I’ve been able to sleep was oh, I’d guess about 18 hours straight during my first summer vacation after my freshman year in college. That was following three days at a friend’s beach house.

It was the beer that did it to me. I wonder if snails get that way from drinking beer? Nah, can’t be. The wife executes slugs by putting out pans of beer at night, and we all know that slugs are nothing but snails without shells.

Babies are born without kneecaps. They don’t get them until they’re a couple of years older, sometimes as many as six years older. No wonder they like to be bounced on grandpa’s knee. They’re jealous they don’t have knees.

There are more chickens in the world than there are people. I’m taking someone’s word for this because I’m in no condition to go out and count the chickens. Ahh, I just had a thought. No wonder the Chinese eat a lot of chicken; they’re trying to surpass its population numbers? Ooooh, that was a bad thought. Never mind.

And finally, while we’re on the subject of superlative numbers, did you know that all the ants in Africa weigh more than all the elephants there? And, correlative to this, I wonder if ants eat elephants?