I can barely remember my high school years, as I am much older than many of you, but I do remember two things, sitting behind Stacy Streble (downboy) during freshman year study hall, and I can vaguely recall science class, where the teacher always asked to prove theories and conclusions and bases and fact and whatever else he or she said. This led me to do my own research on an age old phenomenon that even the great Albert Einstein could never achieve, belly button lint and how it gets there.

Out of all the nooks and crannies on a human body, and I believe girls have more crannies than nooks, it is bewildering to me that an accumulation of any substance can find its way to a single divet in one's stomach. Us guys are familiar with the substance that collects under one's scrotum, which we refer to "fromunda" cheese. Although this cheese does not go well with crackers. Anyway.....

Back in the 1950's and before, doctor's made infants with "outies" where the umbilical cord was cut and a piece of hard candy was placed inside than sewn shut. Thus creating an outward projection from the belly in a button like shape. These people may not understand this lint problem in which I am going to discuss throughout this email. But in recent times as all of us younger people know "innies" became all the rage. I should also state that there are those rare cases such as are friend Tommy. He was a test tube baby and has no belly button, but the scientist did give him the nipples of a naked Alaskan woman, to make up for it. Luckily he has friends like Kimmie to teach him clever new uses for Band-Aids, from her own practices, to conceal his defects. I guess this is the reason why everyone calls Tommy "boo-boo". I love nicknames, mine was always "sticky", I got that during my teen years and I don't want to tell you why.

Before I talk about the "innies" I need to bring to your attention that there has been a recent surge in "outies" in the last couple of years. With all of these extreme sports nowadays, some yahoo's in California have started the practice of bungie births. This is where the mother gives birth on a ladder in which the infant is shot out of the vagina from a height of about 8 feet and the baby is allowed to bungie using only the umbilical cord, but under a doctor's supervision ofcourse. If you calculate the weight of the infant just right, they sometimes just kiss the floor before they spring back up and dangle around. Check your local ESPN listings this summer for exciting coverage of this new sport.

It's very strange, you wear a shirt, and let's say for arguments sake, it's made of a cotton/rayon blend, you go through your normal activities during the day and later in the evening you take the shirt off, and every fiber of cloth that breaks loose from your shirt has collected in your stomach crevice. Never do you find yourself brushing it off your shoulders or picking it out of your armpit, it all is drawn to your belly button. Why? We don't know. Some think it is a powerful static charge pulsating from ones button, drawing all the lint to it. Other's have suggested a sort of vacuum effect. But no one is certain. There have been innovations into stopping this phenomenon from happening, Kimmie is currently testing a ring that she wears inside her belly button to help block any debris from entering her cavity. But even she has privately confessed to me that her belly divet has still been violated with foreign objects with this added obstacle. I can't go into to much detail because her therapist said she isn't ready for that stage quite yet. I have also seen on TV, kids wearing flashing lights inside there belly button, perhaps to scare the fuzzies away. But it's too early in the testing stages to draw a conclusion if this approach is helping or not.

There are many unexplainable wonders on this earth, UFO's, "the force," the duckbilled platypus, my lack of a girlfriend, Tommy's nipples, and the belly button lint accumulation. I have read testimonials of aerodynamically challenged people, like Gumby, who collect this lint on a weekly bases. By the end of the year he has enough material for Kelly to knit him a pair of crew length socks. I also heard stories of these same type of people that can make there own gravy during the summer months, if it's hot enough outside, but that's another story.

The late, great, Jimmy Hendrix once wrote a wonderful song which some of you may be familiar with, called Belly Button Window. In this song Jimmy implies that someone lives in his stomach and sees the world through his belly button. Perhaps he was right, maybe there is a little person, about Darcy's size, living in all of our stomachs, just peeking out our belly button window. Waiting for a nice piece of lint to pass by so he can reach out and snatch it. ( he said snatch ) I think I'll name my little person, Timmy.