The Pun Also Rises(as seen in the North Adams Transcript)
"A Little Omphaloskepsis"Today, I wanted to write my column about procrastination. But I kept putting it off, so it will have to wait until next week. And I know it's hard to take a humor writer seriously when his life is a joke, but I really mean it -- procrastination column soon. If I get around to it. For now, though, I'd like to discuss one of the other things I do aside from procrastination, and that's omphaloskepsis. Omphaloskepsis is a word that means literally "contemplating one's navel." It is derived from the Greek words "omphalos," meaning navel, and "skepsis," meaning enquiry. And I tell you this not only to make you smarter and better than all of your friends, but so you will understand when I tell you how I spend my evenings. If I sit around thinking and not doing much else, we might say that I am "contemplating my navel" aka "engaging in omphaloskepsis," or perhaps "being a philosophy major," or even "preparing for a government job." Now usually, contemplation of one's navel is just a metaphor for idle thought, or an aid to meditation, but lately I've literally been contemplating my navel. It's an innie. As you all know, navels (aka belly-buttons)(aka lint production factories) come in two varieties, innies and outies. Normal Earthlings have innies, and mutants from Nebulax 7 have outies. No offense to those with outies; I bear you no ill will, but those are just the facts. Outies are weird. But take heart, Nebulaxians. More and more people these days are proudly admitting to their abnormal navels, and it is gaining acceptance in modern society. Tiny shirts are showing off navels that go both ways, and outies may be easier to pierce. Even Alan Keyes's daughter has recently announced herself as "Coming Outie," according to a radio report that I couldn't hear very clearly. Anyway, in spite of the fact that I've had it my whole life, I don't have a clear picture of my navel without looking at it. So sometimes I actually find myself staring at it in confusion as I wonder why it's so strange. And when I did this at work the other day, the woman walking by my cubicle looked at me in the exact same way. However, in order to fully understand the navel, we have to examine it. What else do we know about navels? Well, sometimes in the supermarket you can find navel oranges for sale. Which surprises me. Because I can understand how an innie might accumulate a little bit of lint, but a whole orange in there? Is this the most sanitary place to grow fruit? Not to mention the fact that citrus in your belly button could be dangerous if you have any cuts. No, I keep oranges out of my navel, and occasionally take the lint out too. The word "lint" is derived from the Latin word "lintus," which means "lint." Lint, of course, is the bizarre soft and fuzzy substance magically produced by shirts. If you leave a shirt on your shelf for three months, it still won't produce any lint. But when you go to wear it, even for one day, it frequently manages to produce a modicum of lint, which in turn may be stored in your navel region -- presuming you have an innie. I suppose the advantage of an outie would be that lint has nowhere to go, so it stays in the shirt. But I'm not really sure, because I'm not very familiar with outies. I suppose I could have studied belly buttons a bit more before writing a column on them, instead of just contemplating my own, but I wasn't disciplined enough. Besides, who wants to spend time at a school learning about belly-buttons? Only the people at the Navel Academy.
Seth Brown is an omphaloskeptic, and local humor writer. He appears frequently in the Washington Post's
Style Invitational, infrequently in various other publications,
and once in book form -- in his first book "Think You're The
Only One?", published by Barnes & Noble. His Web site is
www.RisingPun.com
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