My Point...And I Do Have One

it’s not that nice), it is nowhere as good as being in Heaven. Oddly enough, when somebody does something nice, nobody ever says, “Go to Heaven!” I guess that’s because a person would have to die before they went to Heaven. Saying “Go to Heaven” is like saying “Drop dead” but with a positive spin.
    Dear Ellen,
How would I explain chewing gum to an alien? I’m just curious. There is no alien holding me hostage and making me answer stupid questions. I do not need HELP! Because, if there was an alien and he thought I was asking for HELP!, he might take me to his spacecraft, fly me to his planet, and put me in a zoo.
    Signed, PLEASE HELP ME!!
    Dear Please Help Me,
Good question. Chewing gum is an anomaly. I’m not exactly sure what anomaly means, but I’m sure that it could apply to chewing gum. A good rule of thumb is, whenever you don’t know the answer to a question, say that it’s an anomaly and then run away before anyone can ask you any more questions.
    That being said, if I were to explain chewing gum to your hypothetical alien, I would say, “Well, Mr. or Ms. Alien, chewing gum is something you put in your mouth, but it’s not really food. I mean, it has a flavor and everything—at least for a few minutes, then even that goes away—but there are no nutrients in it. It’s not even candy. You can swallow candy, but it’s probablybest that you don’t swallow gum. I guess humans buy it because they just love chewing; hence the saying, ‘To chew is human, to forgive divine.’ ”
    I’m not actually sure if I got that saying 100 percent right. One thing I can tell you about gum, though, is that there is no way of getting it out of your mouth that isn’t disgusting. You either have to reach into your mouth with your fingers (and who knows where they’ve been; I suppose you probably do, unless you’ve fallen asleep and there’s no telling where fingers go when you’re sleeping) and yank out the tasteless, saliva-drenched morsel, or you have to spit it out. No matter how much you practice, you can never make spitting out gum look demure.
    At some time in your life, you will step on gum that has been spit out on the street. The way to get it off your shoe is to put an ice cube on it. The gum will harden and you can scrape it off with a spatula (see last week’s column: 25 REASONS TO CARRY A SPATULA WITH YOU AT ALL TIMES) .
    Dear Ellen,
If you ran the Academy Awards, how would you change things?
    Signed, Just felt like sending a letter
    Dear Just …
If I ran the Academy Awards (and I’m not saying that I don’t, though I’m pretty sure that I don’t), I would make them a lot livelier. I would assume that everybody who was nominated equally deserved to win. So, when the nominations are announced, I’d have the Oscar go to the first person from each category to arrive at the location where the announcement came from (it would be a secret and change each year). Youcould win either by being fast or by preventing the other nominees from getting to the destination (by means of kidnapping, putting under anesthesia, etc). I think it would make for exciting television while still maintaining the dignity of the award.
     
    Dear Ellen,
I read this saying the other day: “To know that we know what we know, and that we do not know what we do not know, that is true knowledge,” Henry David Thoreau.
    At first I found this very inspirational, then I realized I had no idea what it meant. What gives?
    Signed, Am I an idiot or what?
    Dear Am I an idiot or what?
    You are not an idiot. Ipso facto you’re a what. What’s a what you might ask. But, you didn’t ask. So I won’t tell. Ha, ha.
    If you’re worried that you don’t understand the saying, here is a simpler way of stating it. Knowing that you know that you know what you know is knowledge of that which you know. You know?
    Hope that’s helpful.
    Dear Ellen,
I have these friends … well, they’re not really friends, they’re people I work with. I call them friends because it makes my life seem less lonely than if I call them co-workers. Anyway, these very close
friends
of mine are always gossiping. Whenever somebody leaves the room, they begin talking about that person behind his or her back (his if it’s a male, hers if it’s a female).
    I found this very amusing until I figured out something: Hey, when I leave the room, they must be gossiping about me! How can I prevent this from happening?
    Signed, Person with lots of