Odd facts and musings

There is an old Romani legend about watermelons that kill. Apparently if you leave a watermelon alone long enough it turns into a vampire. It still looks like a fruit but now it thirst for blood. In the night it causes all kinds of chaos, as they roll themselves and attack. They even growl. Its thought that they couldn't do too much harm to people since apparently they have no teeth so they weren't out right feared.Yet they still do attack and drink blood. It isn't sure if this was told as a fairytale nightmare, in the sames sense as the boogeyman, something adults laugh at but children are unsure of, or it was actually believed. The legend comes form that fact that an aged watermelon develops red spots on the skin or "blood". This only shows up right after the transformation, or right before. Apparently  its tied in with the lore that if you leave any inanimate objects out on the full moon it will become a vampire. Pumpkins and Watermelons are the most common, and it apparently takes 10 days for it to happen.

Still the next time you cut open a watermelon and you see that sweet pink inside, you have to wonder if it was always pink to begin with, or did you just kill a monster? Was your melon a killer and you are now drinking what you think is watermelon juice but is actually AB+ from some poor, blood drained farmer. Who knows, maybe the farmers are feeding the melons blood to begin with. Mmmm, delicious. Would that make
watermelon eaters cannibals, and if you feed watermelon to someone in need of blood would that help?

I guess its no worse than eating jello which is made of boil animal bones, tendons, and skins. Seriously. Anything with gelatin is most likely made of that. Gummy anything folks. I say this as I eat gummy worms. Yumm! Marshmallows get their names from marsh mallows, a plant found in swamps, and were made from the sap of said plant. The plant even has pink flowers. Today most marshmallows are made from corn syurp, starch, sugar, water, and gelatin.That is right, gelatin. Its everywhere. We probably have never had real marshmallows. What a rip off. Egyptians used the real deal to cure sore throats.

Marsh mallows. Yum!

My favorite fact, after watermelons of course. is that Tequila is perfect for making diamonds. It has the perfect amount of carbon, hydrogen, and oxygen. If you just heat up eighty proof to 1,400 degrees it makes a thin diamond film. Its too thin to make jewels, but it still is pretty cool. You are drinking liquid diamonds, and getting smashed. On the note of liqueur, in 2001 Belgium started a program that served beer with children's  lunches instead of sugary drinks like soda. The kids could choose between lager and bitter. The kids liked it. It was only 2.5 proof though. The beer club ran with it and said "Beer is for the whole family!" Indeed. Why wait to start an alcohol problem? I can just see those little tikes, slurring and staggering their way through their elementary days. Hey, they won't remember them anyway. But now, for some reason, they get the shakes during the summer, and they are WAY to excited for school to start.

tequila diamonds

yay! Drunk children!

Death by chocolate really can be. Chocolate is poisonous, though it takes a few pounds to kill you. The toxic part is the alkaloid thebromine, which  is mostly in bakers chocolate and dark chocolate. Chocolate is very toxic to dogs and they love chocolate, just like we do. I had a dog that was really bad about stealing chocolate. If there was any in the house she would find and eat it. The problem was she was way to smart. She once found a box of eight chocolate donuts and she ate them all, and then hid the box under the bed so we wouldn't find it.  For a dog it starts off with bad stomach ache and if they eat to much they die. The bigger the dog, the more it takes, which is why my Greyhound didn't die on the spot, or even get that sick from eating the donuts. She lived to eat a lot more chocolate until age caught up with her. Cats have the same problem but the thing is, cats have no interest in Chocolate. They do not perceive sweetness at all.  That is probably why cats are so mean and dogs are so sweet.

And for those that do not take the platypus serious know that the male of that species is poisonous. Its got a spur on the back of each hind leg that is 15 mm long. No worries. It isn't fatal, just very painful. Also, though it is a mamal, mother platypuses (one of the two correct plural  forms, the other being platypus) do not nurse their young. Well, not the way that we think of nursing. They excrete milk through pores through their abs. No nipples at all.

So raise your glasses of liquid diamonds in a toast to killer fruit and gummy bones. To the marshmallows that we will never eat and drunk elementary school kids. Here is to chocolate dogs and the dangerous platypus. Here is to what makes life interesting.  I hope I have brightened your day, and at least you realize how interesting our little world can be, if we look.