Ask Rachel

Interesting fact: It takes about two weeks after getting a flu shot for your antibodies to develop. That means, for two weeks, you still get to be a hypochondriac.

Interesting fact: I did not get Follies tickets this year, because I believe firmly that my Saturday mornings are for sleeping.

Interesting fact: The Cranberries were originally named The Cranberry Saw Us, which incidentally is also the title of my upcoming independent horror film.

Interesting fact: There’s, honest to Marx, a type of cheek kiss called the socialist fraternal kiss. It’s a special greeting between statesmen of Communist countries. Though it sadly has given way to the socialist fraternal embrace.

Interesting fact: Hitting a deer will not, in fact, raise your auto insurance rates. Unless it does. Just be glad we don’t live in West Virginia, where the odds are 1 in 44 that you’ll hit one.

Interesting fact: There is truly no interesting fact about The Home Depot.

Interesting fact: We may have nine “Star Wars” movies, but that can’t touch George Lucas’ other great cinematographic achievements: we’re now up to 14 “Land Before Time” films.

Interesting fact: Missy Votel’s coupon book interview is the only one in compliance with the Associated Press style guide. Probably. I didn’t check, but I know firsthand that girl’s dislike for the Oxford comma.

Interesting fact: Even Harvard University once changed its name from Harvard College. And look – it’s still standing.

Interesting fact: Scabies infections happen when a female mite burrows into your skin to live and deposit eggs and now I really wish I hadn’t looked that up.

Interesting fact: Slime is a non-Newtonian fluid because it does not behave as predicted by the big man’s laws. Same goes for gelatin, glue, quicksand and ketchup. 

Interesting fact: Hot chile burns calories by triggering a thermodynamic burn in the body, which speeds up metabolism, thereby enabling one to eat even more chile. 

Interesting fact: Fuel costs about 10 cents per mile. Total cost of driving a car is about 60 cents per mile. Preserving a friendship is priceless, so I recommend flying.

Interesting fact: Banana trees, biologically speaking, are not trees at all. They are actually giant herbs.

Interesting fact: Rob Horning asserted that the hipster might be the “embodiment of postmodernism as a spent force, revealing what happens when pastiche and irony exhaust themselves as aesthetics.” It says that on Wikipedia, but I saw it first. 

Interesting fact: Sweat is odorless until it combines with the bacteria found on your skin. So it’s not you who stinks. It’s the petri dish in your armpit.

Interesting fact: Doesn’t it feel like the pumpkin spice latte has been around forever? Nope. It’s only 14 years old. So stop ogling it.

Interesting fact: Macy’s invented wedding registries in the 1920s. Before that, people still got married for some reason, even without the incentive of a new toaster oven.