I admit it: I can’t really identify why I’m so gaga about lists. Lists of homophones, girl-name song titles, funny typos…the list goes on (I’ll soon be starting a list of bad puns). I don’t do it to raise funds for a cause, in the manner of collecting six million paper clips or walking for three days garbed in athletic wear embossed with pink ribbons. I just like listing. Maybe it’s nothing more than a penchant for organization (the boxes and cans in my pantry are arranged largest-to-smallest). As I’ve said many times before, who can explain the meanderings of a writer’s mind?
But I’m not alone! Check out Reader’s Digest blogger Maureen Mackey’s List of Wild and Crazy Book Titles. Or the granddaddy of them all, The Book of Lists by DavidWallechinsky and Amy Wallace (children of famed novelist Irving Wallace). And after seeing titles like Where Underpants Come From, suddenly WHIFF: Human Aroma Through the Ages doesn’t seem so outlandish.
In fact, I think I’ll check out Where Underpants Come From. I’m sure there’s a smelly story in there worth including in my research. As a [first] Gulf War veteran recently related to me, luxuries like bathing and laundering don’t exist on the combat front. “After a while,” says my friend, “you realize your underwear isn’t doing anything for you, so you just throw it away.”
Coming from a Marine whose personal record for not bathing (unable, not unwilling) is 37 days, I’ll take his word on it.
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Got any smelly factoids of your own to contribute to WHIFF? Send them to:author40@verizon.net (your privacy assured). Pending your permission, they could wind up in the book.
“Expect the Unexpected”
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https://www.cynthiapgallagher.com/