Ask Rachel

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. 

Interesting fact: Gorilla aggression is conveyed by a stern, fixed stare. Gorilla indifference is conveyed by not returning your phone calls. 

Interesting fact: Emily Post’s Etiquette, 17th Edition says you can wear white after Labor Day. Coco Chanel wore white year-round. So as long as your hood isn’t pointed, I say wear white whenever you please. 

Interesting fact: We are as far from Halloween as Halloween is from Christmas. Hold off on the decorations, alright?

Interesting fact: Autocorrect turns “vaping” to “vapid” – the definition of which is, “offering nothing that is stimulating or challenging; insipid.” Back in my day, we had neither autocorrect nor vaping. 

Interesting fact: “The moon is made of a greene cheese” was a popular proverb in 16th- and 17th-century English literature. Proverbs are meant to teach us fundamental morals, so it’s possible I’m doing morality all wrong. 

Interesting fact: There are enough dogs in the Durango area named Chaco. It’s time for some Mesa Verdes and Chimney Rocks. Come on, people. 

Interesting fact: The word “washateria” came into the English language around 1937. No word on why “laundromat” is now the preferred term of the self-service laundry community. 

Interesting fact: George Washington had coonhounds named Drunkard, Taster, Tipler and Tipsy. Trump is the only other president, other than James K. Polk, without a pet.

Interesting fact: In Japan, earwigs are called “Chinpo-Basami” or “Chinpo-Kiri,” which translates to “penis cutter.” On second thought, they can stay in my garden.

Interesting fact: We all know what “deaf,” “blind” and “mute” mean, but is there a word for people who can’t smell? Of course there is. It’s “anosmic.” But if you read up on it, you’ll hypochondriac yourself into having chronic meningitis and neurosyphilis. 

Interesting fact: The Supreme Court says it’s not a violation of constitutional rights to fly a drone at low altitude. But they still won’t allow my drone into the Great Hall.

Interesting fact: The bindel, aka a hobo’s blaket-stick, may hail from the German/ Yiddish word Bu?ndel. I point this out so that the newspaper’s typesetter has to scramble for an umlaut before press time.