How It's Made

Because we are scintillating conversationalists, suave and sophisticated human beings and generally THE people to hang with, you might be surprised to learn that Ron and I spent an uncharacteristic Saturday evening alone. Having just completed a very thorough biography of Jane Goodall, we finished watching the last of three documentaries on this woman's extraordinary life. In fact, given the chance, I'm sure Dr. Goodall, having been informed of the stellar qualities we possess (see above), would have gladly dropped every one of her activist activities and joined us for brandy by the fire.

After seeing Jane romp with the Gombe chimps, we somehow got sucked into a marathon of "How It's Made." Normally, this isn't something I'd watch, but Ron loves it so I practiced my wifely submission (for the first time in, let's see . . . forever) and got some techy education. We watched how bread was made. Have you ever seen a TON (literally) of bread dough? As I watched it glump down a shoot I became convinced that bread dough was used to create Jabba the Hut. Yeah. Pretty disgusting. We also saw how chocolate was made (have to say, a bit of a disappointment. If you want to have a chocolate orgy watch the movie "Chocolat," starring Johnny Depp. Enough said.) And flashlights, mozzarella cheese, pasta, contact lenses, florescent lightbulbs, pills, cd's, skateboards and . . . I think that's all.

What blows my mind are the complex machines that do most of the work. I mean, it took a lot of genius brains to figure this stuff out. It's really, really crazy and makes my very non-genius brain hurt. Which is probably why I haven't invented one of those clever machines. Unless you count the robot I made in the basement that, in theory, cooks, cleans, and takes out the garbage. "In theory" because I haven't got all the kinks worked out. What's that? That sounds like Ron? Dang. Already invented. Back to the drawing board . . .