Brilliant Solving

Do not skip over this column! Failure to read it could result in severe personal consequences.

David Thurber of Battle Creek, Michigan had a chance to read this column, but ignored it instead. Now he is a homeless paraplegic with a boil the size of a tangerine on his face.

Linda Menendez of Roanoke, Virginia did read this column, and she now spends her days basking in perpetual orgasm while handsome male servants feed her exotic fruits.

Only a naïve fool would call this coincidence!

Why is this week’s edition so unusually valuable?

Because this is the first installment of my annual feature “Brilliant Solving,” or “B.S.” for short. I will dissect life’s most nagging and annoying mysteries so you can feel like you actually got something out of reading your newspaper, besides intellectual stimulation.

First question: When cleaning the bathroom, how do you manage to remove hair, as opposed to just wiping it around?

Seriously! I use industrial strength carcinogenic spray chemicals of doom in my bathroom. This stuff is so strong that it removes actual layers of porcelain from my toilet, and even hard water stains, if you can believe that.

But those pesky hairs just get swished around. Exasperated, I resorted to a pair of tweezers, which is okay for the outside but problematic in those “hard to reach” places.

To solve this mystery, I went back to my most trusted research method: ask any woman born before 1980.

It turns out I couldn’t pick up the hair because I was using paper towels. I’m told a coarse cloth of some sort, or even a washcloth, will pick up the hair. (What you do with the cloth after that is up to you. I recommend dipping it in acid and throwing it into a bonfire the size of a UPS truck.)

At any rate, I will definitely let you know how well this method works next time I clean my toilet seven months from now. I am thankful that I will no longer have to listen to my wife read me the riot act for inadequate bathroom splendor.

Next question: Where does the phrase “Read the Riot Act” come from?

I assumed this is some sort of historical reference, in which some people were rioting, and parliament passed a “Riot Act,” and messengers had to go around and sternly read it to people in town squares, which probably resulted in more rioting.

Good luck finding a woman born before 1980 who knows anything about riots. So I consulted phrases.org, which confirmed that I was basically correct, for a change.

The British Parliament did, in fact, pass a Riot Act in 1714, which allowed local authorities to disperse or arrest any group of 12 or more people assembled in one place. (This sounds pretty harsh until you remember men in Afghanistan are allowed, by law, to demand sex from their wives every four days, and women can’t leave their houses without a male relative.)
Authorities were required to read the act to such a crowd before they could begin beating people with clubs and throwing tear gas.

Last question: If your goal is to prevent people of the same gender from having sex with each other, shouldn’t you encourage them to get married?

I don’t think any amount of B.S. is going to touch that one.