Johnny America

 

Tom Conoboy Knows the An­swers # 1

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We here at John­ny Amer­i­ca HQ have long been fas­ci­nat­ed by the British in gen­er­al and British li­brar­i­ans in par­tic­u­lar. If Brits are half as clever as they seem on TV and li­brary sci­ence cur­ric­u­la a third as de­mand­ing as res­i­dent Li­brary Sci­en­tist Emi­ly Law­ton tells us, Tom Conoboy can be math­e­mat­i­cal­ly cal­cu­lat­ed to be fourth smartest per­son in all Eng­lish-speak­ing coun­tries in­clud­ing Aus­tralia, where he would be con­sid­ered a kind of de­mi-god. Imag­ine our de­light when he sent us the fol­low­ing of­fer along with a sto­ry submission:

“If you have any queries, let me know. I used to be a li­brar­i­an so I may be able to an­swer them.”

Any queries? On any top­ic? Yes, of course we do. Fol­low­ing is our first set of ques­tions for Tom Conoboy, and his answers.

Q1: Why are bi­cy­cles for boys and girls dif­fer­ent, and would­n’t it make more sense for the boys’ style to be the one with­out the dan­ger­ous bar be­tween the legs?

A1a. So the lit­tle ladies could sit on the bike with­out hav­ing to lift up their crino­lines and flash their an­kles at sug­gestible menfolk.

A1b. It’s a rite of pas­sage for any boy to come off his sad­dle at speed and mash his tes­ti­cles on the cross­bar. I can still re­mem­ber the bruising.

Q2: What, re­al­ly, is the worst way to die?

A2: Be­fore you’re ready.

Filed under Tom Conoboy Knows the Answers on November 1st, 2006

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[…] You said that the worst way to die is “be­fore you’re ready.” But wouldn’t that be the worst time to die? Al­so, I think most peo­ple die be­fore they […]

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