FRUITCAKE FLAPDOODLE

THE NEFF ZONE -- BY JIM NEFF

CADILLAC NEWS -- DECEMBER 23, 2023

Johnny Carson once quipped on his Tonight Show: “There is only one fruitcake in the entire world, and people keep sending it to each other.” That's funny, but not really true. Just on Allrecipes.com alone there are sixty-four varieties. Apparently, fruitcake ingredients are somewhere between a medley and a mishmash. 

In that spirit, today's column is a bit of fruitcake flapdoodle. Items will be tossed into the mixing bowl with no apparent organization. Long internet addresses will be left out. The hope is that the result will be a tasty holiday treat. 

Many families will gather around a Christmas tree next Monday. “Between twenty-five and thirty million Christmas trees are sold in America every year. Data from the USDA Agricultural Census mapped how many Christmas trees are grown and sold in counties across the US.” The top five counties are: Ashe Country, North Carolina; Clackamas County, Oregon; Marion County, Oregon; Avery County, North Carolina; and our very own Missaukee County, Michigan.

Those families might also gather to watch Christmas movies. Which movies are viewed over and over? “According to a new Yahoo/YouGov poll: Home Alone (34%), A Christmas Story (33%), a Charlie Brown Christmas (32%), Rudolph the Red-Nosed Reindeer (29%), Elf (26%), and Christmas Vacation (25%).”

While watching a movie, nibbling on a chocolate chip cookie is satisfying, Did you know there was no such cookie before 1930? It was invented at the Toll House Inn (Massachusetts). “Originally served as an accompaniment to ice cream, the cookie became the restaurant’s most enduring creation. The recipe called for literally chipping the chocolate off the bar. After Nestle got permission to use the recipe, the company debuted its morsel chips in 1940 — the chocolate chips we know today.”

Speaking of cookies, if you can wait until January 3, there will be some new ones on store shelves. “Oreo just announced it will be welcoming three new cookie varieties to its cavalcade of crunchy confections. The first, Oreo Black & White Cookies, is a limited-edition flavor. The two permanent additions are Peanut Butter Cakesters and Gluten-Free Golden.”

Coffee goes with cookies, but you may not know that the drink is responsible (sort of) for your doorbell camera. “We can credit coffee-craving inventors for creating the first webcam. In the early 1990s, computer scientists grew tired of trekking to the office kitchen for a cup of joe only to find the carafe in need of a refill. They devised a makeshift digital monitor — a camera that uploaded three pictures per minute of the coffee maker to a shared computer network — to guarantee a fresh pot of coffee was waiting.” 

There may be some kidlings hoping to receive a puppy for Christmas, so it's informative to know the expense that could be involved. “To find out which dog breeds cost the most and least in America, MarketWatch compiled a list of officially recognized breeds from the American Kennel Club website. They then worked out the median price per dog breed, and ranked the pups both according to average cost and by size. The most expensive breed of puppy you can buy in the US is the Lagotto Romagnolo, which costs a median of $3,850. The most affordable breed overall is the Miniature Poodle, costing around $800 a puppy. When it comes to large puppies, the Boerboel is the priciest ($3,000). French bulldogs cost the most of any small dog, with puppies coming with a price tag of $3,500, on average.” 

Another popular gift is a bicycle. It's interesting to note that while biking is largely a safe activity, riding a two-wheeler presents a bit of a mystery for scientists. “It's one of the great ironies of life that we supposedly never forget how to ride a bicycle yet lack a firm understanding of the mechanics that enable us to pull it off in the first place.” Many theories have been posited and dismissed. “There remains a glaring question mark at the heart of a $54 billion global industry.”

How we stay upright on a bike is still debatable, but some things are predictable. This is the case with a woman's  encounter with an MRI machine during a recent hospital visit (name and location anonymous). “It might seem obvious to most that one probably shouldn't bring a firearm into a large machine with a powerful magnetic field. A 57-year-old female patient who needed an MRI was shot in the posterior after sneaking her gun into the machine. The handgun was attracted to the magnet and fired a single round. The bullet pierced the woman's right posterior.” Luckily, the wound was small. 

Finally, don't forget the Neff Zone Holidays page at: https://www.neffzone.com/holidays/. The NORAD Santa Tracker will go live on Christmas Eve. 

Jim Neff is a local columnist. Read Neff Zone columns online at CadillacNews.com and NefZone.com/cadillacnews.