Scientists have discovered that bees drink human tears. No kidding. Here's the whole article. I find this fascinating for several reasons. The first being, how did these sciencey-types come up with this idea? They're having a convo after a hard day at the lab, perhaps with beer in hand. "Hey, have you ever wondered if bees drink tears?"
Why yes, Bob. I have. Let's get some crying people together . . . .
So just the idea of it, is pretty funny. But, in addition to reading about the study, is the comments that people have left. They range from v. funny:
You can tell that I'm sad because of the bees in my eyes.
It annoys me that people still used "man" to refer to humans, both women and men.
And then! It becomes a feminist argument about language instead of beer-drinking, I mean, tear-drinking bees. Really; read the comments. And I get it, I really do. We're ignoring an entire gender; my gender specifically. But it's an article about bees. Drinking tears.
Some people are waiting to be offended. You know what's funny? It's easy for me to recognize when other people take things so literally and seriously that they don't have a sense of humour about something. It's funny when it's other people who get their panties in a twist. Until . . .
Someone disses chiropractors. Grrrrr! That's when John will kindly point out that I have a burr in my saddle.
Or a bee in my bonnet. But I'm not sticking around to let it drink my tears. ;-)
P.S. For those of you who will point out the preposition lollygagging at the end of my post title--you know who you are. I am well aware of the rule and remember it everytime I break it. With glee. It's my version of sticking it to the Grammar MAN.
"imbibed tears for 0.5-2.5 min, often singly but occasionally in congregations of 5-7 specimens per eye."
WHO LETS THIS HAPPEN?