Search
Polls
Latest Forum Posts
| Taking a Knee unclebuck 15-11-08 13:51 |
| Re:Football unclebuck 07-10-08 15:24 |
| Re:Football unclebuck 02-10-08 12:59 |
Login Form
| Her Voice |
|
|
| Written by Elizabette Guecamburu / Community Columnist | |
| Wednesday, 30 January 2008 | |
|
Pearls of wisdom?  Elizabette Guecamburu / Hometown Girl The presidential election season is in full-swing. I know that statement may seem completely obvious — just like saying that it rains a lot in Seattle. But just in case you don’t have a television and haven’t received the incessant political mail fliers that make one wish that paper had never been invented, I thought I would state the obvious anyway. Presidential candidates are everywhere — the first thing we hear when we turn on the television in the morning and the last thing we see as we take out our scratchy contact lenses at night. Because it is virtually impossible to avoid the presidential election, I decided to actually pay attention to the campaign and the candidates. I have been listening to stump speeches, knowing that my high school civics teacher would be proud. I have been watching clips of candidates kissing babies and hugging copious numbers of old people. Through it all, one can’t help but notice that the candidate’s spouse is always standing nearby — looking at the candidate as if he or she has not seen something this amazing since Steve Jobs made Apple more than a fruit. During my study, I also observed another similarity between candidate spouses: the fact that they all wear strands of pearls reminiscent of Wilma Flintstone. Mind you, I’m not referring to Mr. Clinton — on him, I think, pearls would not only look ridiculous but would also clash with his white hair. As for the rest, is there some unwritten rule that all political wives must wear pearls? What’s so great about a pearl, anyway? To answer these questions, I decided to do a little research. It appears that before the development of cultured pearl farms, hundreds of wild oysters and mussels would have to be opened (ergo, killed) to find a single pearl. Like the metaphorical needle in the haystack, a wild pearl used to fetch a high price for its rarity. In recent history, however, innovation has allowed us to “manufacture” pearls. It is done by injecting oysters and mussels with a minute foreign object, which stimulates the shelled creature to secrete a liquid to cover the foreign object. Eventually, those secretions harden to become a pearl. So, in essence, a pearl is an oyster booger. Even though it is probably juvenile, this discovery made me giggle a little. So while a presidential candidate is giving a rousing speech to a roomful of retired pharmacists, his wife could be standing nearby wearing a booger necklace. It doesn’t get much more American than that. Suddenly, I think this election season will be infinitely more entertaining for me. Now, if we could only get Mr. Clinton to wear some pearls … Elizabette Guecamburu is a writer and native Patterson resident. She accepts e-mails at This e-mail address is being protected from spam bots, you need JavaScript enabled to view it
Set as favorite
Bookmark
Email This
Hits: 192 Comments
(0)
|
Subscribe to this comment's feed