Dear Friends,
The Hard Taco song for May is called, "Family Curse," and it's an instant classic. (As opposed to "Classic Instant," which describes Folger's coffee any cream or sugar.")
For this month's Hard Taco digest, I'm bringing back an old feature called "Didja know? / Doncha know?" There's one DK/DK fact for every day of the month, so you can learn knew things between Wordles.
May 1:
Didja know? The reason some people put a horizontal line through the number 7 and letter Z is that they didn't mean to write them and don't have an eraser.
May 2:
Doncha know? The tradition of shaking hands started as a way to check if the other person was Jesus and was currently nailed to a cross.
May 3:
Didja know? NASA claims to have lost communication with the Mars Rover Curiosity in 2021, but really they just drifted apart as NASA started spending more time with Perseverance and stopped responding to Curiosity's texts.
May 4:
Doncha know? If you meet a German with celiac disease, it is considered rude to greet them with the phrase "Gluten Tag."
May 5:
Didja know? The tongue is the only muscle that is attached at only one end, rendering it useless unless stuck to a frozen flagpole.
May 6:
Doncha know? If you try to hum with while holding your nose, spinal fluid will come out your belly button.
May 7:
Didja know? Honey never spoils. When archeologists found honey in an ancient Egyptian tomb they sniffed it to be sure, shrugged, drank it straight from the canopic jar, and put the jar back in the sarcophagus.
May 8:
Doncha know? Sharks have been on this planet longer than trees, and they won't shut up about how much better music was back then.
May 9:
Didja know? A single piece of confetti is called a "confetto," and it is traditionally dropped from the ceiling when the Chiefs win the Super Bowl, because seriously nobody cares.
May 10:
Doncha know? The first humans wore fig leaves over their genitals to protect their modesty. We honor this tradition today by wearing a figurative fig leaf over one eye. (To clarify, this mostly works when said in a roomful of pirates.)
May 11:
Didja know? The Amazon rainforest produces 20% of the world's oxygen, which is converted by the local fauna into Portuguese small talk.
May 12:
Doncha know? A "d" is just an older "4" that took its bra off at the end of the day.
May 13:
Didja know? In 1311, Pope Clement V outlawed bowling because he feared that the game detracted the faithful from their religious obligations. Ironically, Clement is now the most common name among bowlers.
May 14:
Doncha know? You would be impressed enough to go out with me if I proclaimed that tomatoes are actually fruits, bananas are actually berries, and peanuts are actually legumes.
May 15:
Didja know? A sneeze travels up to 100 miles an hour, but the creators of Superman still chose to go with the speeding bullet analogy.
May 16:
Doncha know? The word "titillation" is derived from the word "tittle," which means the dot over an "i." Anyone who has ever dotted an i knows what I'm talking about, amiright?
May 17:
Didja know? Lady Mary Wortley Montagu famously suffered from digitivolaticophobia, the fear that a garden warbler would perch on her extended pinky while she sipped tea.
May 18:
Doncha know? Goosebumps, gooseflesh, goose pimples, and erector pili are all synonyms, but scientists argue about which term is the grossest.
May 19:
Didja know? Gustave Eiffel got the idea for the monument that bears his name when he saw a small UFO trying to capture a giant letter A with a tractor beam.
May 20:
Doncha know? A group of flamingos is called a "flamboyance." A group of flamingoes that sings and dances but can't play their own instruments is called a "flamboyband."
May 21:
Didja know? Ben Franklin petitioned for the turkey to be the official bird of the United States, but he settled for Butterball being the official poultry sponsor of The U.S. Constitution.
May 22:
Doncha know? For one day each year of the Vietnam conflict, the U.S. Army made everyone wear Mexican-American War throwback uniforms.
May 23:
Didja know? Thomas Edison invented the phonograph as a way to record and playback the unique sound he heard when shaking his previous invention, the dead light bulb.
May 24:
Doncha know? Humans are the only animals that blush. That said, tapeworms get pretty embarrassed when someone asks them to explain their life cycle at a cocktail party.
May 25:
Didja know? Some scientists believe that the evolutionary purpose of wisdom teeth is to chew out one's own appendix. So neither is completely useless.
May 26:
Doncha know? One quarter of all of your bones are located in your feet, and one quarter of your feet are located on my keychain. (This comment is directed at a specific rabbit.)
May 27:
Didja know? There is no evidence that aliens have visited any of the other planets in our solar system, but that may just be because they have only learned to announce their presence with crop circles.
May 28:
Doncha know? Butterflies taste with their feet, so it one lands on you're tongue, it's trying to French kiss you.
May 29:
Didja know? Honeybees can recognize human faces, but they still get Amy Adams and Isla Fisher confused.
May 30:
Doncha know? The bar code was invented as a way to help sell clothing, because vertical stripes are slimming.
May 31:
Didja know?
The Vatican has the highest per capita crime rate in the world, due to its small size, large number of visitors, and minor Roman Catholic holidays such as The Feast of Disorderly Conduct and Saint Alphonse the Jaywalker.
With warmest regards,
Zach
