Dear Kid,

In my continuing effort to distract myself from the ridiculousness that is 3 days (arrg!) until graduation, I have scoured the internet to find 25 weirdly fun trivia facts. You’re gonna love it. Trust me.

  1. A snail can sleep for 3 years. Proving that snails and college students have a lot in common.
  2. Horses can’t vomit. Proving that horses and college students have very little in common.
  3. Squirrels can’t burp. Meaning they have very little in common with 3rd grade boys.
  4. Ben & Jerry learned how to make ice cream by taking a $5 correspondence course offered by Penn State. There’s no question that Penn State knows a lot about ice cream. But I’m willing to bet most correspondence classes don’t launch mega-successful businesses.
  5. M&Ms actually stands for “Mars & Murrie’s,” the last names of the candy’s founders.
  6. The only number whose letters are in alphabetical order is 40 (f-o-r-t-y). Weird and wonderful.
  7. “Jay” used to be slang for “foolish person.” So when a pedestrian ignored street signs, he was referred to as a “jaywalker.” Now such a person is referred to as a New Yorker.
  8. Tigers have striped skin not just striped fur. Fashion fur-ever.
  9. Changes in the English language happen in many ways. After an online vote in 2011, Toyota announced that the official plural of Prius was Prii.
  10. The only 15 letter word that can be spelled without repeating a letter is uncopyrightable.
  11. The word “Checkmate” in chess comes from the Persian phrase “Shah Mat,” which means “the king is dead.”
  12. Walt Disney was afraid of mice. M-I-C … K-E-Y… Mickey Goat?Countdown to Graduation: 3 days to go and 25 crazy trivia facts. DearKidLoveMom.com
  13. A crocodile can’t stick its tongue out.
  14. There are more fake flamingos in the world than real ones. (Shout out to Joan!)
  15. A shrimp’s heart is in its head. Or on its sleeve.
  16. All polar bears are left-handed. But they knit right-handed, because that’s important.
  17. You can’t hum while holding your nose closed. (Go ahead and try it—I’ll wait.)
  18. We all know that no word rhymes with “orange”. But did you know nothing rhymes with “month”? Or “purple”?
  19. Maine is the only American state whose name is just one syllable. (You just ran through all 50 states, didn’t you?)
  20. The electric chair was invented by a dentist. There seem to be so many things to say, and I can’t think of single one.
  21. The symbol on the “pound” key (#) is called an octothorpe. No one cares.
  22. By the time you are 70 you will have drunk over 12,000 gallons of water. I will have drunk the equivalent amount of coffee and Diet Coke.
  23. The colder the room you sleep in, the higher the odds that you’ll have a bad dream. This is true, but I’m having a hard time convincing your father.
  24. Women have twice as many pain receptors on their body than men. But a much higher pain tolerance. Well, yeah, duh.
  25. Your forearm (from inside of elbow to inside of wrist) is the same length as your foot. (You just measured, didn’t you?)

Love, Mom