My Favorite Crackpot Theories
By Chad Woody
Contrails are full of viruses or toxins being dumped by the U.S. Govt
My brother’s buddies are into this one. Supposedly every time you see a bunch of contrails in the sky, two or three days later everyone gets sick. Lots of problems here:
- Why would they want to make people sick? (Profit-sharing deal with Nyquil?)
- Why would they make it visible in the sky? Couldn’t it be aerosolized invisibly? Those contrails are like mile-long banners.
- There are always contrails, and there are always people getting sick, but I doubt there’s any correlation, statistically. We saw four at once on the day I heard this theory from my brother, and neither of us got sick.
- Every airplane mechanic and inspector in the country would have to be in on the scheme to make it work, and possibly the pilots.
- Wouldn’t it be easier just to walk around a mall or a Walmart spritzing a biowarfare perfume bottle or rubbing contaminated wipes onto door handles?
WD-40 can be rubbed on knees and elbows for arthritis relief
Another favorite of senior citizens, commonly overheard at such gatherings as the I-44 Swap Meet or Cowboy Church. All I can say is, “What the hell?” Is this some kind of mass delusion drawn from childhood empathy for the Tinman of Oz? Why would anyone think or hope that a petroleum-based solvent would soak through their flesh and lube their joints? Are people offering this folk remedy in good faith, or is it more like a retooling of the old snipe hunt gag? Maybe a passive aggressive joke to bring down elderly frienemies? Hey Mitchell, I got that shit-for-brains Dusty Corlett wasting better than 16 ounces of WD-40 a month on his goddamn cranky knees! That’ll teach him to sell us alfalfa that’s got fescue in it.
However it began, the WD-40 myth is widespread enough that there is a disclaimer posted on the manufacturer’s website: “WD-40 Company does not recommend the use of WD-40 for medical purposes, and knows no reason why WD-40 would be effective for arthritis pain relief. WD-40 contains petroleum distillates and should be handled with the same precautions for any product containing this type of material.”
My wife’s cats have complex human motivations behind their actions
What can I say about this? They don’t. They’re dumb.
Scientology
I know, I’m not supposed to persecute religions. Maybe I’m just bitter that I’ll never be a Seventh Level Thetan like Tom Cruise; even in Dungeons & Dragons, I cheated spiritually by rolling up 11th level magic-user character sheets while alone in my room. Still, Scientology is just in a league of its own. I’ve been in love with this one since college, when a friend revealed to me a secret St. Louis-based effort to discombobulate the Scientology phone banks. By “effort” I mean three or four jerks who just thought it was funny to call the 1-800-FOR-TRUTH number and give their paranoid operators a hard time, weaponizing the key phrase “Twenty-three Skidoo.”
I’d been seeing the Dianetics commercials late at night for a while. Apparently my watching of MacGyver reruns and USA Network shows like Swamp Thing put me in the right demographic for needing the children of L. Ron Hubbard to put my mind right. The other guys warned not to call from your home phone, because the adversary was vindictive and would retaliate with lawsuits or who knows what. Legend had it, they even had people attacked or killed sometimes. So I called from my rich brother-in-law’s car phone, and a variety of payphones.
Just as lower acolytes of Scientology are not supposed to know about Zemu and the evil spirits He once locked in volcanoes to protect the intergalactic reincarnation empire, so the uninitiated caller to the Dianetics hotline was not supposed to know that Dianetics is the primer for Scientology. So, if you said the word Scientology, you were immediately suspect, possibly even cursed and hung up on.
The champ performance was to lead a Dianetics operator through several minutes of calm, philosophical talk, to the point where you requested the free literature and gave your name and address. Since you didn’t want to give your real info, this was a perfect time to say something like, “My name is Howlin’ Mad Murdock, and I live at 23 Skidoo Terrace,” and let the exasperated anger ensue. Once, three of us apparently shut down the Dianetics line for a while by calling it repeatedly from a bank of payphones at the Chicago Art Institute. After a few rapid-fire “23 SKIDOO”s, they gave only busy signals.
A deluxe alternative stratagem came from Phil, who introduced me to the 23 Skidoo trick. In a stroke of comic genius, he liked to mix it up by sometimes calling the adversary and saying, in a robotic voice, “L. Ron, this is R. Bob. L. Ron, this is R. Bob. L. Ron, this is R. Bob….”