Go Ask Daddy About Soda Bottles, Laws of Tanning, and the Ultimate Greenback

Court, over at Baking in my Bathing Suit, had an idea.

“Have you ever done a ‘Readers Ask Coach Daddy”? She asked in comments on my most recent Go Ask Daddy post. “I bet you people have some good questions for you.” So I aim to find out.

Send me your Go Ask Daddy questions this week.

Put “Go Ask Daddy” in the subject line and email to bloggingeli@gmail.com. If I get five or more, I’ll pick five and answer them. If not? I’ll act like this never happened.

I’ve had similar bad luck when I asked for questions for my short-lived Ask a Boy feature. Maybe this is different.

Maybe five years of taking a weekly (weakly?) stab at solving the mysteries of my kids’ imagination empower me to take on the universe. Maybe we’re on to a new feature around her. Or maybe your questions will pale in comparison to my girls’ inquiries.

We shall see.

1. How do they make logos for soda bottles?

You could do it on a website like this or like this.

Today, you’d hire an agency. Back in Coca-Cola’s inception, one partner might turn to the other and say, “Two Cs would look cool in ads.” (That’s how Coke’s logo came to be.) Pepsi took off with a patriotic color scheme, but what has become of it over history?

This blogger says the logo has been modified to represent some cosmic ideas, such as:

• Earth’s magnetic field
• Feng Shui
• Golden Ratio
• Pythagoras geodynamics
• Theory of relativity

Conspiracy theories aside, you can go to this site and make your own Coke label.

2. What does that stuff they spray on soccer injuries do?

There’s about as much sorcery in that product as there is in the Pepsi logo – depending on who you ask. (About the spray *and* about the Pepsi logo).

You might have seen it used in the last men’s World Cup tournament. The scene repeated – boy player taps shinguards with an enemy (or comes close to appearing to), boy player grimaces as if he’s had his spleen extracted through his right nipple.

Boy writhes on the ground clutching his shin guard with one eye open to see if the ref is falling for it.

Next, comes the trainer, who, before teaming up with teammates and other trainers to heft the near-death player onto a gurney, sprays a magic aerosol onto his beleaguered calf, and – voila! He’s cured, and motoring back up the pitch!

(Female players just skip these outbursts.)

That can could contain many things, such as:

COLD WATER | You know, to regulate body temperature

TINCTURE OF BENZOIN | This helps prep sweaty skin for a wee bandage

ETHYL CHLORIDE | It’s a skin refrigerant and could steal pain away from, say, a stubbed toe

Just give me a Coke Zero and a snickerdoodle and I’m good to go.

3. Can you get a tan from a camp fire?

EP

It’s about as likely as a spray can containing a miracle elixir for overdramatic soccer boys.

You might get red skin or even a burned hole in your sweater from an ember if you sit too close to a campfire. You can’t, however, bronze by basking in the glory of one. For tanning, you must have UVA and UVB rays to properly bake your skin.

While you’re laying out and think you’re turning sexy in the sun, you’re actually exciting your photons enough to cause DNA damage. Melanogesis results. That’s when your body produces more melanin, a biological dye. This makes your skin darker.

A campfire lacks the high energy components to cause tanning. But they do roast a damned good marshmallow. And isn’t that what counts?

4. AT&T Stadium. Where is it?

photo credit: Ray Bouknight via photopin cc

It sits at 1 AT&T Way, in Arlington, Texas.

It’s where the Dallas Cowboys play, and other teams play playoff games. Even Super Bowls. Other teams win there, such as the Green Bay Packers, in Super Bowl XLV. (The Cowboys last won a Super Bowl anywhere in Super Bowl XXX – about XX years ago.)

Fun facts about the Cowboys’ home

1. It’s often called The Death Star for it’s menacing bulk – and perhaps also for the foreboding implosions that occur within.
2. Thousands of fans have paid $200 each to stand outside the stadium to watch the game on a big screen.
3. While the Cowboys lost eight straight home games at AT&T Stadium in 2015-16, the University of Alabama won three straight there, beating Wisconsin, Michigan State, and Southern California in the $1.2 billion stadium.

5. Is there a million-dollar bill?

If there is, Cowboys owner Jerry Jones would bet one or two on his team not losing eight straight home games ever again. (I say his odds are 7:2 against.)

The U.S. Mint has no templates for a million dollar bill. Companies print them all the time, depicting their CEO or a recent retiree where Benjamin might sit. The concept is so preposterous that the Secret Service doesn’t even outlaw such printing.

Today, the gaudiest American bill you can find – besides Clinton – is the $100. Bills larger than that would make it easier to make cash drops for drugs. Also, those suitcases they use for ransom money on TV could be reduced to a cigar box, and that’s just not alluring.

Back in 2012, a fellow North Carolinian walked into a Wal-Mart and racked up a tab of nearly $500. Big-ticket items included a microwave and vacuum. Because he was a baller, he paid cash – with a million-dollar bill.

Never mind the gobstash of change due would have required at least a cigar box to carry. Instead, he had to put the microwave and vacuum back, and got a pair of felony charges to take home instead.

Retired big bills in American history include (with the mugs in the middle of them):

$500: William McKinley

$1,000: Grover Cleveland

$5,000: James Madison

$10,000: Salmon P. Chase

$100,000: Woodrow Wilson*

*These bills never reached the public. Only Federal Reserve banks exchanged them.

They used to call NASCAR legend Bill Elliott “Million Dollar Bill” back in the day when a million dollars was a big deal. I once broke a huge story about that dude while toiling at a tiny newspaper right out of college, during a shift at a local diner.

Want to know more? You’ll have to Go Ask Daddy.