Intelligence, You Say?

Last night, we met Paul and Kelly at my hubby's radio station so we could carpool together to the concert. While waiting for them at the station, I was flipping through one of those daily desk calendar things. (You know, the ones with quotes each day or pics of dogs or what have you.) This particular calendar was put out by John Tesh (Yes, the name sounds familiar to you. No, you probably don't know who he is. If you do, best not to admit it.) and was titled (along with his radio program) "Music and Intelligence For Your Life."

I was caught up in the Rush-Limbaugh-like hubris of claiming in the title of your show that you offer intelligence to others on a daily basis and the wheels of sarcasm were turning in my busy little brain, ready to unleash until ... I read the quote for yesterday.

This insightful little gem advised the following (and here I paraphrase, though I assure you I'm missing none of the pertinent particulars): When stressed or upset, eat carrots or celery. The chewing action releases tension stored in the jaw. Rice cakes will also relieve your stress.

I blinked. Read it again, just to be sure I had this glorious piece of intelligence correct. I did. Since Tesh's show is aimed at women and men alike, he clearly believes this to be a valid approach to dealing with a stressed, overwhelmed, possibly hormonal woman.

Allow me to point out the glaring flaw in this logic. If a woman (and I think I speak for most of the gender here) is feeling enough stress to drive her to the kitchen, your best bet is to throw chocolate (or Hot Tamales, which are of the devil) in her direction as you run for your life out the back door. DO NOT, under any circumstances, offer rice cakes instead. This will be seen as an insult of the highest degree and will result in almost certain death for you.

Likewise, offering a delightful assortment of fresh cut veggies to the hormonal woman will result in you experiencing your daily recommended veggie allowance in bodily orifices which, until that moment, didn't know veggies existed.

If the point of this entire exercise is to release tension from the jaw, may I just say that cookies require chewing, especially if they have chocolate chips inside. So do candy bars. Donuts. Or, if you want a healthier approach, peach pie. What? It has fruit.

After reading this pithy piece of advice, I almost want to purchase Tesh's little calendar of daily intelligence. Who knows how many blog posts I could wring out of its contents?