The Gene Pool Has Spoken

In the first round of Balderdash, the Greater Guy Family submitted the following for consideration.

Answers in this space tomorrow.

The Adventures of El Frenetico and Go Girl:

1) A flamenco dancer falls for a handsome waiter and they open a dance studio in Seville. They train a troupe of flamenco dancers who take Broadway by storm
2) A hyperactive mutant teen and her idol meet and end up saving Los Angeles
3) The saga of two Go-Go dancers attempting to win a dance marathon and use the prize money to spring "go girl's" father from a Mexican drug prison
4) Two young benzedrine hop-heads criss-cross the country trying to calm down
5) Two schoolteachers find luck in love and global security when they adopt superhero alter-egos, Dubai-style
6) The misguided adventures of two outcast superheroes ( -- 90 minutes / PG 13)
7) A Zorro-type guy and his karate-kicking girlfriend fight a junk food mogul whose snacks turn people into zombies.

Waldheimia

1) A psychological disorder in which the afflicted fears his reflection in the mirror.
2) A distinctive walk developed by Waldo He (“hay”) using a stride + skip with the left foot and a hop with the right foot.
3) A form of clinical psychosis distinguished by the confusion of policemen for nuns
4) Alsatian meadow violet
5) A family of nearly extinct clams named after Fischer von Waldheim
6) Failure to be able to recall embarrassing incidents in one’s past
7) A rallying cry from German soccer players, when leaving the Black Forest

Myra Fanklin

1) Wrote the hit song “I Saw Mommy Kissing Santa Claus”
2) Mistress of Albert Einstein, who received 20 percent of his estate after his death
3) A”king-maker” socialite who was Theodore Roosevelt’s lover
4) Against the wishes of her husband built a machine shop in the back yard and in it invented the first dual blade lawnmower
5) Girlfriend of “Tommy the Nose,” Mafia figure of the 1960’s.
6) Myra’s family fortunes shifted when this Akron, Ohio, mother of five won the 2001 Duct Tape Challenge by constructing the photo backdrop for her son’s Junior Prom
7) The woman who has seen the movie The Sound of Music over 1000 times

In Oklahoma it's still illegal to destroy:

1) Ballots in the year in which they were cast
2) Another man's melons at night
3) Your neighbor's milk chute
4) Any public sign containing the letters "O.K."
5) The tag on a new mattress until it has been owned for 90 days
6) Church steeples
7) First edition copies of The Grapes of Wrath

The New Place Sounds Like This

On the weekends, our neighbor quietly works on his truck in his driveway while listening to recordings of duck calls on the stereo.

MRAKmrakmrakmrakmrakmrak...MRAKmrakMRAAAKmrakmrak...

Lice

It's a little early in the season to be discussing lice, but it was a hot day like this when I saw it...

In the old place, there was a thrift store. It was run down but had bargains. I found $40 v-slicer there for $3, for example. And an optigan. And vintage ashtrays from Trader Vics. Still have them all.

It was the kind of place where you could catch local color, like the exasperated mother shouting "TRAVIS!! Put that down or I'll slap a TURD outta ya!!"

Even that was classy compared to the decline that occurred over time. Store changed hands and the new owner let her grandparents sleep on the furniture with the T.V. on. I kept shopping there, but it felt creepy. One day before the store closed for good I saw a greasy pizza box nailed to the wall over the basket of hats and wigs. On the interior was scrawled in ballpoint ink:

Due to lice infestation, do not try on hats.

Such was the old place.

Sheffield's Dentifrice -- a correction

Sheffield's Dentifrice -- a correction

The correspondent who furnished the formula for a preparation said to resemble this, which was printed in last month's CIRCULAR, was unfortunate enough to write sodium bicarbonate where he meant to say precipitated chalk. We here reproduce the formula corrected accordingly:

Powdered white castile soap........................6 drs.
Precipitated chalk...........................................15 ozs.
Carmine, No. 40..............................................3 or 4 grs.
Sassafras flavoring (as below).....................100 mins
Glycerin, a sufficient quantity.

Rub the solids well together, add the falvoring in small portions during the constant trituration and then glycerin enough to form a thin paste.

Sassafras Flavoring.

Oil of sassafras..................5 1/2 drs.
Oil of cinnamon..................2 drs.
Oil of wintergreen..............1/2 dr.
Extract of vanilla................4 drs.
Alcohol................................4 drs.
Shake before using.

--- The Druggists Circular And Chemical Gazette, June 1893