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Editor’s Note: Part two of a column that began on Feb. 8

Mark Twain at his best: “The two most important days of your life are the day you were born and the day you found out why.”

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Boar’s Head deli meats recently had a reckoning. Their Virginia plant was closed after a deadly listeria outbreak. New reports revealed that problems went further than expected. Their plants in Arkansas, Indiana and Virginia were found to have mold, insects, condensation falling on food, and meat and fat residue described as “general filth.”

Other observations included “dried meat juices and grime” on a doorway, “unidentified slime,” and a visible puddle of “blood debris, and trash.” In other words, Boar’s Head was not meeting its “high standards.” Crickey! All this is making Oscar look downright virtuous!

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In 2023, China produced 2.4 trillion TRILLION! cigarettes. That accounts for nearly half of all the cigarettes that are sold globally. It’s no wonder there’s a dense cloud of smog over that country. Cough…sneeze…wheeze….!

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For the people in Austin who like nothing better than to take a wintry jump into the frigid East Side Lake, you have a title. You are a psychrolute. Yup, that’s what those hearty, hardy guys and gals who like to bathe in cold lakes, rivers and oceans are called. And here all along, we’ve simply called them “nuts”!

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Scientists at the University of Edinburgh have conjured up a way to turn “fatbergs”—those foul-smelling masses of congealed fat and grease that form in sewer systems—into …. get this …. perfume! This is their explanation: “We have engineered bacteria to eat the fatbergs and turn them into fragrant compounds used in products such as perfumes and shampoos. The fact that it’s now possible to make horrible stinky waste into something useful blows our minds.”

Well, it blows my mind, too. And I’m thinking that Boar’s Head Meats should hook up with these fatberg fellows.

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Arachnophobes be on the alert. Venomous species of one of the world’s deadliest spiders has recently been discovered in Australia. The Newcastle funnel-web, nick-named “Big Boy,” can grow up to 3.5 inches long. This spider has been known to kill thirteen people, although no deaths have occurred since 1981 when an antivenin was developed. (When my husband read this to me, his old eyes played a trick on him. Where he should have read—3.5 inches—he read 3.5 feet! Holy cow! A spider on Geritol?)

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We return to China now. Not for tariffs or covid viruses, but instead cows. In particular cows’ gallbladders. Seems that there are riches beyond belief inside cows’ gallbladders. Smugglers recently raided a slaughterhouse for this prized medicinal ingredient … the gallstones. Here’s the scoop. The gallstone nuggets are hardened bile and sell for as much as $5,800 an ounce, twice the price of gold. The aging population in China has caused a peak in the demand for them. The little rust colored rocks are carefully cleaned and left to dry for weeks, then crushed into pills at roughly $100 apiece.

Although there have been no definite scientific findings, some random studies have shown that these gallstones can delay the effect of strokes. As a result, cattle gallstones are becoming rarer as farms, feed and animal health have improved. All this has sparked a global treasure hunt across the world’s top beef producing regions including Texas, Australia and Brazil. One incident in Brazil resulted in robbers breaking into a farmhouse, tying up the owners and stealing their stash of $50,000 worth of gallstones. Who knew we’d ever be discussing something so weird? It’s making the ban on hotdogs seem sensible. Well ….. sorta.

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And, in conclusion, if you are afraid of trains, you have siderodromophobia. So there.