When you have a mind that races at a million miles a minute, it is inevitable your brain will land on some very bizarre thoughts. I would argue that’s how some of the greatest scientific innovations of all time came to be. And the weird ones, too, of course.
How else would we have figured out that only a portion of people can smell the sulfur from the amino acids in asparagus in our pee? It obviously took someone going, “Hey, wait a sec, my wee smells a bit off….”
To vocalize some of the weirder thoughts we have, we have to have some courage, but in the name of science, we should totally do it. For instance, during college, one of our senior RAs, Ryan, took a lot of courage to blurt out in the middle of our RA training what I think to be a crazy but very true discovery. One morning, as we were eating breakfast, he said, “Did you ever notice that, after drinking coffee, your pee smells like Sugar Smacks cereal?”
Right now, I bet there are quite a few light bulbs going off in the heads of a few readers.
I also bet that there are quite a few coffee makers brewing up some coffee right now in the name of science.
It’s totally true, by the way.
With my crazy, all-over-the-place mind, I tend to have an average of 964 random thoughts that could lead to scientific breakthroughs and another 1,485 about things that I know science has covered but I’m curious to know what led to the breakthrough. And don’t even get me started on the origin of slang. I have read so many articles and books on how things came to be.
I know that, language-wise, we have Shakespeare to thank for quite a bit. Although, I’m pretty sure he has had nothing to do with some of the more weird slang I’ve heard. The one that was stuck in my head today, which caused me to think of this post in the first place, is the term swamp butt, also known as swamp ass.
For the record, this came to be after walking around in the sweltering heat and seeing way too many people who were sitting down and needed to learn how to wear clothing more appropriate for the heat and bring a change of clothing for when they started to sweat through their first pair of pants/shorts.
I must also add, that I made the mistake of Googling “swamp butt,” and learned that it’s also called “monkey butt,” which is cracking me up to no end. Plus, there are some hilarious articles out there, including one with the line “dusting your huevos in cornstarch.” I swear to Jeebus I’m not making this up.
This is where I must emphasize the fact that sometimes we think of things that take courage to admit we think. I’m pretty sure that anyone who can smell the sulfur from asparagus in pee thinks about it every single time they smell it (at least I do), just as I do when I smell the aroma of Sugar Smacks in my wee after having coffee. And I don’t just get caught up thinking about the origin of swamp butt. Plenty of other words have left me wondering who the heck thought up their bizarre origins. Words like falcon punch, douchebag, and Netflix neck.
But I am amused easily.
Mindy Kinnaman 