Super long drive from California to Telluride. And first off I drove from Los Angeles to 
Northern California. My sitting parts are still fussing.
What to do during all those hours in the car?
Look at the fab scenery. Read the map. Chat, of course. Great to have extended time with Ariel. Work a crossword puzzle. We spent a good long while on a devilishly difficult Wednesday one. “Pentominoes”? Seriously?
And audiobooks…both Ariel and I both enjoy audiobooks and we snagged a library handful before we took off. The winner: “Why Sh*t Happens: The Science of A Really Bad Day.”
The best car audiobook, for more than one person, is something with a good reader, without a complicated structure—what if you miss a few seconds when a semi- passes you? AND a book that allows you to dip in and out of at will. Why Sh*t Happens, by Peter J. Bentley, PdD, meets all those criteria, plus fulfills my insatiable curiosity.
And here—just for you—some fun facts from Why Sh*t Happens….And no need to spend four days in the car, or get evicted from a hotel to learn them…
Factoids:
*The pen-knife…so named because a small knife was used to trim quill feathers used as pens.
*The crinkles that appear on your skin during a long bath? After the natural oil barrier is gone from your skin, the skin itself begins to absorb water. Since its got nowhere to go—like the puffing up of a wet sponge—the skin develops little crinkles. Which go away shortly.
*Soap works by wrapping the dirt in little chemical packets and carrying it away.
*Your brain doesn’t feel pain. Pain is designed for you to do something…or stop doing something! (touching the hot stove, for example). Short-term there’s nothing you can do to help out your brain. A headache actually is in the lining, between skull and brain.
*The only part of the body that has as many nerve endings as fingers…is the tongue. Why babies put things in their mouths before they figure out how their fingers work.
*Why are moths hairy? To foil bats’ sonar.
* The “fact” that NASA spent millions on a pen that would write in space…a myth. Both US and Russian astronauts initially used…pencils.
