4

What Happens To The Change We Toss In Fountains And Wishing Wells?

Years ago, I theorized that the only thing keeping us from stealing the coins in wishing wells and in public fountains was our collective agreement that we shouldn't. If you take it, then someone's wish -- maybe that asshole Rick from accounting drops dead in front of his family -- won't come true. Though it seems like if it was ever going to come true, it would've happened the second the coin broke the surface of the water. Why the delay on the wish, fountain? Are you so overloaded with wishes that you can't get to them all? Do you need an assistant? No, fountain, I think you're just full of shit, and that anyone can take that money whenever they want, because who cares? It's just sitting there getting rusty. It's not like it's going anywhere or doing anything worthwhile.

Only it does. Sometimes.

The coins you drop into fountains when you attempt to wish your gonorrhea away end up going to one of three places. The first is right back into itself. Sometimes those coins will be used to pay workers for fountain maintenance. They are the heroes who have to skim cigarette butts and the phlegm of a thousand jerks out of those things every so often to make them sanitary enough so that the idiot child of an oblivious parent won't die of dysentery when they gulp down pigeon toilet water. Money well-spent, I say, even though their cleaning of that little pool weakens the gene pool.

Charity is another common destination. Sometimes the people who pay to have fountains installed aren't the kind of people who think Ebenezer Scrooge gets a bad rap. The fountain at the Mall of America in Minnesota divvies up the $24,000 that's dropped into it every year among multiple charities. Every coin tossed into a fountain in Rome funds a nearby grocery store for the disadvantaged. Places may not put up a sign that says their money is going to a worthwhile charity for people who've lost their testicles in fireworks accidents, but sometimes, every wish you make ensures that a guy who thought it be funny to teabag a bottle rocket can get a realistic replacement left nut.

3

If Penicillin Grows On Moldy Bread, Does That Mean It's Safe To Eat Moldy Bread?

Mold is mold, and it shouldn't be eaten, right? But penicillin is mold, and penicillin gave us antibiotics, which are good. Therefore, maybe I can use that green fuzzy slice of white bread for my PB&J so I don't have to go store, right? It sounds gross, but there's a logic at play which negates my instinct to flatly reject a hypothetical offer to eat bread so sickly that if it were a person, I would demand they be quarantined on a desolate island in the middle of the Pacific with no hope that they'll ever see their family again.

So maybe like Gorgonzola and blue cheese, bread mold isn't that bad to eat? Maybe we just avoid it to be on the safe side?

It's a bit more complicated than that. There are a lot of different kinds of mold that form on bread. There's one which, if ingested, can give you a ton of mouth sores and respiratory problems. Penicillin mold is usually a blue-green color. Eating it might give you an upset stomach. Sniffing it might mess up your lungs a little. But it's not the worst thing in the world. That still doesn't mean you should eat it, though. If you're one of the 10 percent of people who are allergic to penicillin, eating moldy bread could send you into anaphylactic shock. Thankfully, 94 percent of people who think they're allergic to penicillin are full of shit.

2

Do Cats And Dogs Know It's Their Own Tail When They Chase It?

Dogs and cats: They're adorable, right? We let them into our homes, let them bond with our children, and make them part of our family. And then, without a moment's notice, they attack their own tails with the fury of a thousand MMA fighters. And then they go back to using their tails to express emotions and shit. So what's the deal? Are cats and dogs really dumb enough to think their own asses are their mortal enemies?

Both animals are at least somewhat aware that their tails are attached to their bodies, so they're not attacking them because they think it's a threat or a potential meal. From there, the reasons for the unrelenting attacks diverge. If a dog is doing it, it's most likely because they're bored. They may have adapted to being our best buds and will spend a lazy Saturday afternoon watching TV by our side, but their instinct is to be free-roaming creatures that let no man tell them what they can't chase. Their obsessive chasing of their own tails is the dog equivalent of a person talking to themselves when they're home alone. It's an outlet for their stir-craziness. So take them to the dog park before they rip their own tail off.

1

Why Does "Freshly Squeezed" Bottled Orange Juice Taste Absolutely Nothing Like Actual Freshly Squeezed Juice?

I understand that there's going to be a difference in flavor between a bottle of orange juice that claims it's freshly squeezed and juice after it's been squeezed by my own hands. But "freshly squeezed" -- or just the fact that a bottle of orange juice even considers itself orange juice at all -- has to be a lie. The gap between the flavors is so wide that they might as well be two different beverages, like how Budweiser is called a beer when it's actually carbonated dishwater.

I drank bottled orange juice for years, thinking that wringing half an orange into my mouth would be the same experience, only much more seductive to anyone who's watching. Then I finally squeezed my own juice one morning, and my tongue exploded. It didn't have the same sting of bottled juice. It was smooth and silky, as if the tree it was picked from had been played nothing but Barry White and Sade. It was sweeter, but not sickeningly so, like when you pour the perfect measurement of sugar into a coffee. It actually smelled like an orange, and not a citrus-scented air freshener mixed with the ass it's trying to mask.