wanted, apparently witty and messy weren’t enough.
I sat there staring at the screen wondering what that had been all about, and Flip came in wearing an assortment of duct tape and a pair of backless clogs.
She should have used some of the duct tape on the clogs. They slopped off her feet with every step, and she had to half-shuffle her way down the hall to me. The clogs and the duct tape were both the bilious electric blue she’d worn the other day.
“What do you call that color?” I asked.
“Cerenkhov blue.”
Of course. After the bluish radiation in nuclear reactors. How appropriate. In fairness, though, I had to admit it wasn’t the first time a faddish color had been given a wretched name. Back in Louis XVI’s day, color names had been downright nauseating. Sewerage, arsenic, smallpox, and Sick Spaniard had all been hit names for yellow-green.
Flip handed me a piece of paper. “You need to sign this,” she said.
It was a petition to declare the staff lounge a nonsmoking area. “Where will people be allowed to smoke if they can’t smoke in the lounge?” I said.
“They shouldn’t smoke. It causes cancer,” she said righteously. “I think people who smoke shouldn’t be allowed to have jobs.” She tossed her hank of hair. “And they should have to live someplace where their secondhand smoke can’t hurt the rest of us.”
“Really, Herr Goebbels,” I said, forgetting that ignorance is the biggest trend of all, and handed the petition back to her.
“Second-secondhand smoke is dangerous,” she said huffily.
“So is meanness.” I turned back to the computer.
“How much does a crown cost?” she said.
It seemed to be my day for questions out of left field. “A crown?” I said, bewildered. “You mean, like a tiara?”
“No-o-o,” she said. “A crown.”
I tried to picture a crown on top of Flip’s hank of hair, with her hair wrap hanging down one side, and failed. But whatever she was talking about, I’d better pay attention because it was likely to be the next big fad. Flip might be incompetent, insubordinate, and generally insufferable, but she was right there on the cutting edge of fashion.
“A crown,” I said. “Made out of gold?” I pantomimed placing one on my head. “With points?”
“Points?” she said, outraged. “It better not have points. A crown.”
“I’m sorry, Flip,” I said. “I don’t know—”
“You’re a scinentist,” she said. “You’re supposed to know scientific terms,” she said.
I wondered if crown had become a scientific term the way duct tape had become a personal errand.
“A crown!” she said, sighed enormously, and clopped out of the lab and down the hall.
It was my day for encounters I couldn’t make heads or tails of, and that included my hair-bobbing data. I was sorry I’d ever gotten the idea of including the other fads of the day. There were way too many of them, and none of them made any sense.
Peanut-pushing, for instance, and flagpole-sitting, and painting knees with rouge. College kids had painted old Model T’s with clever slogans like “Banana oil” and “Oh, you kid!”, middle-aged housewives had dressed up like Chinese maidens and played mah-jongg, and fads had seemed to come out of the woodwork, superseding each other in months and sometimes weeks. The black bottom replaced mah-jongg, which had replaced King Tut, and the whole thing was so chaotic it was impossible to sort out.
Crossword puzzles were the only fad that was halfway reasonable, and even that was a puzzle. The fad had started in the fall of 1924, well after hair-bobbing, but crossword puzzles had been around since the 1800s, and the New York World had published a weekly crossword since 1913.
And reasonable, on closer examination, wasn’t really the word. A minister had passed out crosswords during church that, on being solved, revealed the scripture lesson. Women had worn dresses decorated with black-and-white squares, and hats and
I sat there staring at the screen wondering what that had been all about, and Flip came in wearing an assortment of duct tape and a pair of backless clogs.
She should have used some of the duct tape on the clogs. They slopped off her feet with every step, and she had to half-shuffle her way down the hall to me. The clogs and the duct tape were both the bilious electric blue she’d worn the other day.
“What do you call that color?” I asked.
“Cerenkhov blue.”
Of course. After the bluish radiation in nuclear reactors. How appropriate. In fairness, though, I had to admit it wasn’t the first time a faddish color had been given a wretched name. Back in Louis XVI’s day, color names had been downright nauseating. Sewerage, arsenic, smallpox, and Sick Spaniard had all been hit names for yellow-green.
Flip handed me a piece of paper. “You need to sign this,” she said.
It was a petition to declare the staff lounge a nonsmoking area. “Where will people be allowed to smoke if they can’t smoke in the lounge?” I said.
“They shouldn’t smoke. It causes cancer,” she said righteously. “I think people who smoke shouldn’t be allowed to have jobs.” She tossed her hank of hair. “And they should have to live someplace where their secondhand smoke can’t hurt the rest of us.”
“Really, Herr Goebbels,” I said, forgetting that ignorance is the biggest trend of all, and handed the petition back to her.
“Second-secondhand smoke is dangerous,” she said huffily.
“So is meanness.” I turned back to the computer.
“How much does a crown cost?” she said.
It seemed to be my day for questions out of left field. “A crown?” I said, bewildered. “You mean, like a tiara?”
“No-o-o,” she said. “A crown.”
I tried to picture a crown on top of Flip’s hank of hair, with her hair wrap hanging down one side, and failed. But whatever she was talking about, I’d better pay attention because it was likely to be the next big fad. Flip might be incompetent, insubordinate, and generally insufferable, but she was right there on the cutting edge of fashion.
“A crown,” I said. “Made out of gold?” I pantomimed placing one on my head. “With points?”
“Points?” she said, outraged. “It better not have points. A crown.”
“I’m sorry, Flip,” I said. “I don’t know—”
“You’re a scinentist,” she said. “You’re supposed to know scientific terms,” she said.
I wondered if crown had become a scientific term the way duct tape had become a personal errand.
“A crown!” she said, sighed enormously, and clopped out of the lab and down the hall.
It was my day for encounters I couldn’t make heads or tails of, and that included my hair-bobbing data. I was sorry I’d ever gotten the idea of including the other fads of the day. There were way too many of them, and none of them made any sense.
Peanut-pushing, for instance, and flagpole-sitting, and painting knees with rouge. College kids had painted old Model T’s with clever slogans like “Banana oil” and “Oh, you kid!”, middle-aged housewives had dressed up like Chinese maidens and played mah-jongg, and fads had seemed to come out of the woodwork, superseding each other in months and sometimes weeks. The black bottom replaced mah-jongg, which had replaced King Tut, and the whole thing was so chaotic it was impossible to sort out.
Crossword puzzles were the only fad that was halfway reasonable, and even that was a puzzle. The fad had started in the fall of 1924, well after hair-bobbing, but crossword puzzles had been around since the 1800s, and the New York World had published a weekly crossword since 1913.
And reasonable, on closer examination, wasn’t really the word. A minister had passed out crosswords during church that, on being solved, revealed the scripture lesson. Women had worn dresses decorated with black-and-white squares, and hats and
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