Taking a Hint From Heloise

By John Kelly
Tuesday, May 31, 2005

Is there a word for secretly enjoying something that you hate to do? I think we all do it: take a perverse pleasure in doing something that drives us crazy.

In the case of my 11-year-old daughter, Beatrice , that thing is reading "Hints From Heloise." The banality and obviousness of the hints drive her around the bend. She delights, especially, in the hints from kids that run in the Sunday comics, common-sense bromides along the lines of "Sometimes when I accidentally tear my homework, I use Scotch tape to put the two pieces back together again."

The final straw was a hint from a few weeks back that recommended doing crossword puzzles in pencil rather than pen. Beatrice almost overturned her bowl of Reese's Pieces Cereal when she read that one.

All of this inspired my next reader contest, which is to write a nonsensical, overly obvious or possibly dangerous hint from Heloise. Here's one I came up with:

"I always had a hard time deciding where to store my rat poison, and then I hit on it: Those green containers that hold Parmesan cheese are the perfect size and shape. And the shaker on the top means I can pour out just the right amount of rodenticide. I store it on the Lazy Susan in the kitchen, since that's where the rats are."

Send your entry -- with "Hint" in the subject line -- to kellyj@washpost.com . Or write John Kelly, The Washington Post, 1150 15th St. NW, Washington, D.C. 20071. Please include your name and the city you live in. I'll print the best in a future column and treat the author of my favorite to lunch at the restaurant of his or her choice. The deadline is June 10.

An Hope Spring Eternal

I love reading the Harper's Index, that unadorned collection of interesting facts at the front of Harper's magazine.

I was tickled to see that they'd chosen a factoid from one of my columns: How long it takes to read a single weekday issue of The Post in its entirety aloud (28 hours). I don't mind that they didn't give me credit, deferring instead to the Washington Ear, the volunteer group I wrote about that reads The Post and many other publications to the visually impaired. It did bother me that Harper's said the Ear is in "Silver Springs, Md." Ugh.

Speaking of extra consonants, Gerald Epstein of Bethesda wrote to say: "I wanted to thank you -- or maybe your copy editor -- for your use of the phrase 'a historian' in your May 18 column. I think that people who say 'an historian' should be forced to take an hike up an hill on an hot day."

Agreed. When I hear people say "an historic" I always assume they're stuck up or putting on airs. Here is the relevant passage from The Post's official style manual:

"Sound, not spelling, determines which is used. The indefinite article a is used with words that begin with a sounded h: a historic day, a hotel in London . The word an is used before words beginning with an unsounded h: an honor, an heir . A also is used before words beginning with vowels that are sounded like consonants: a union, a Eucharist service ."

No It Isn't -- And Yes There Are

More words: I've about reached my limit on hearing the now-common expressions "It's all good" and "No worries."

They both seem to be employed as sort of verbal emollients. I hear them uttered when there's been some specific shortcoming, but, in the greater scheme of things, "It's all good" and "No worries."

They strike me as a way to elide over our mistakes, and, in the case of "No worries," be needlessly Australian.

Um, No Thank You

I received a lot of response to my column a while back about those annoying e-mail messages from Plaxo which beg you to update your contact information. Sadly, most of it was from PR guys at companies explaining why their Plaxo-like product was so much better than Plaxo, and not annoying at all. They begged me to write about them.

One wrote: "We got involved in what we call the relationship capital management industry because we thought business networking had great potential, but services like LinkedIn seemed to be little more than Friendster without the pictures."

Yes, and a watermelon is little more than a chicken without the feathers.

Hanging on the Telephone

If you were to see me on the street or meet me in person, you would assume that I am a man. If I were to call you on the telephone, you might not be so sure.

That, at least, is my sad conclusion based on the many times I've been mistaken for a woman on the phone. It happened again just the other day. I'd called an office and asked for a certain person.

"I'm afraid he's not here, ma'am," the secretary said.

Luckily, she then put me through to his voice mail. What's bad is when they ask if they can take my name and number, as in, "May I take a message, ma'am?" (The worst was the woman who kept saying " Joan Kelly?" when I said " John Kelly.")

I feel I'm letting them down, that my refusal to be the woman they think I am is somehow disappointing them. I usually clear my throat and adopt a Barry White basso profundo. I tell myself that my voice must be pitched at a frequency that confuses modern telephones, rendering it an octave or two higher than it is in reality.

My very manly e-mail address iskellyj@washpost.com.