Ellington

Sept. 17, 2003

Crazy Under a Full Moon
Q. Do you make your questions up?
— Wondering on Woodrow Wilson

A. Only if I have to.
If nobody e-mails any questions to me (see below) or gives me any when they see me around town, I have two choices: (1) harass friends, neighbors and total strangers to think up questions, or (2) make them up myself. I'll harass almost anybody anywhere before I resort to the second option.

And for a very simple reason: It is much easier to answer someone else's question than to make one up I have to answer for myself, since I have been known to go off on tangents and never actually answer the question—or so I've been told! It's just harder to ask a question that you don't really ask than it is to answer a question you don't really answer.

Also, when I ask a question, I want an answer. If I were writing questions for someone else to answer, here are some things I'd like to know:

1. Where do toadstools come from?
2. Why is the southbound stoplight at the corner of Old Canton and Fondren Place so interminably long?
3. Why would someone (from elsewhere) who knows a dozen or more people living in Belhaven, only two of whom have ever been the victim of theft, say, "Everybody I know in Belhaven has been robbed"?
4. Why did the swallows go to Capistrano in the first place?
5. Does George W. Bush really think we cannot tell the difference between what he says and what he does?
6. Why would 137 people even want to be governor of California?
7. Who killed Jon Benet?
8. Who is that handsome man in tights and tutu, and why does he twirl a baton at the corner of Fortification and State Street every Thursday?
9. Is there anywhere to buy good prosciutto in Jackson?
10. Why do mosquitoes always bite me when nobody else is getting bit?
11. When did sheiks become "shakes"?
12. Why does a full moon always bring the crazies out?

And that's the truth.

JoAnne would love to hear your questions so she doesn't have to make them up. Send your questions, whatever they may be, to PO Box 2047, Jackson, Miss., 39225, or fax to 866/728-4798 (toll free). Include name and daytime phone number, although it can be withheld.