Finding your inner lizard (Dave Barry)

Miami Herald ^ | Dave Barry

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Finding your inner lizard

(This classic Dave Barry column was originally published Aug. 11, 2001.)

Today we present an important breakthrough in the ongoing effort by research scientists to figure out what, if anything, men are thinking. But first, we have an important warning concerning a worrisome topic that, unfortunately, is very much on our minds these days: pecan safety.

This warning is based on an alarming report from the St. Louis Post-Dispatch, written by Heather Ratcliffe and sent in by a number (14 million) of alert readers. The report concerns a Pacific, Mo., couple who -- like so many people -- kept a bucket of pecans in their garage. ''Their visiting grandchildren like to feed the nuts to squirrels,'' explains the Post-Dispatch.

The story states that one fateful day, the man -- seeking to keep the couple's dog from getting into the bucket -- put a second bucket on top of it, thus sealing the pecans tightly inside. You have probably already guessed what happened next: The dog burned down.

No, sorry. The HOUSE burned down. According to the Post-Dispatch, a reaction called ''spontaneous combustion'' -- which is caused when oxygen combines rapidly with a snack food -- took place inside the bucket, and the pecans ''burst into flames.'' (The same reaction occurs inside your stomach when you eat a Slim Jim.)

The Post-Dispatch, getting both sides of the story, contacted a Missouri pecan grower, Elizabeth James, 82, who has been growing pecans since 1940. She stated that her pecans have never, in all those years, given her any trouble. ''They don't explode by themselves,'' she is quoted as saying, adding, ``my Lord.''

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Pong

[Bronco_Buster_FweetHyagh]

Headline: Old man’s nuts explode and catch on fire.

[econjack]

I’ve known this for years, but at least now I have formal research to get me off the hook.

[A knight without armor]

I have no normal childhood memories. The one this reminds me of is my father heard that a woman's basketful of clean laundry caught on fire. So every time we brought our laundry home from the Laundromat he'd get mad if we (i.e. “I”) did not immediately put it away.

On a saner note our neighbors had huge barns and after baling time they would cut off their yard lights at night so as to be aware if the freshly baled hay caught fire due to being moist and fermenting like the pecans did. They took this very seriously. It does happen.

[CrazyIvan]

“Nuts” (Brigadier General Anthony C. McAuliffe)