Of course, there are those who don't see why a person would eat
worms to help his bowels. "Why not just eat more vegetables?" asked
my 14-year-old son. "Eating worms can't help that much, can
it?"
Which almost brings us to artichokes. But not quite.
First, there is the matter of the other scientific study I
mentioned. It was sent to me by
Lou's wife, Judy Frels, from
The
Wall Street Journal. The article was titled, "Pleasure
Principle: Study Says More Sex Akin to Higher Pay." (I can't say if
there is anything significant about him sending an article on worms
and bowels and her sending an article on sex and money. That's for
some other study.)
The study, given the snazzy title, "Money, Sex and Happiness: An
Empirical Study," was conducted by a couple of economists who
sought to quantify the material value of romance. The
Journal cites one of the researchers as calculating that
going from monthly to weekly sex is "roughly equivalent to the
amount of happiness that an extra $50,000 of income would bring to
the average American."
Judy posed the question, "What does it take to feel like a million
bucks?" I tried to figure it out. If Johnny goes to the store and
comes back with a pint of strawberries and a quart of whipped cream
… um, no, let's not complicate this. You subtract $25,000 from
$1,000,000 and then divide three (the additional times per month)
into $975,000 and you get, oh, I don't know, but I told my wife it
was at least twice a day. Then I went out for strawberries.
And that, ladies and gentlemen, is how we get to artichokes. With
its squat shape and pointy plates, an artichoke looks like the
vegetable world's version of a stegosaurus.