Humor

In Your Ear

By Tom Hoerr

June 1984

Historical humor by Tom Hoerr, June 1984. Panacheology categories are satire, not factual assessments of the people named.

I’m not much for inventing terms. Generally I like to speak relatively common English except for my penchant for somewhat obscure words: chary; vertiginous; sinecure; and suburbs, to name a few. I now, however, have a term whose time has definitely come: panacheology. Yep, panacheology, the study of verve and flamboyance, is a much needed word in today’s society. You may not even be aware that you’ve been groping for the word, but believe me, you have! Everywhere one goes people are studying panache.

Oh, maybe not by name; in fact, probably not by name, but studying it nonetheless.

When you walk in a strange house and see books on a shelf, what do you do? Right, you slyly wander over and read the titles; that’s panacheology. You’re not reading the titles to decide whether or not to borrow a volume, you’re looking for panache. Your mind races, “Is this person together, worthy of my time, or not? Let’s see what books are here.. .. Chilton’s Auto Guide for Beginners, Gardening With Your Dog, and My Life Story by Tom Zych! Yikes!” you say, “I am obviously in the wrong house!” Get my point? That’s a classic example of panacheology and you’re being a panacheologist.

Reading bumper stickers while driving is another example of panacheology (others’ bumper stickers, that is; reading your own bumper sticker while driving is an example of foolishology!).

A wise

—or even not so wise

—panacheologist knows that a bumper sticker tells you a great deal about the driver of a car. “Tracy’s Karate,” for example, likely means someone who wears white socks and a wristwatch that beeps. “This car washed at Jason’s Car Wash” either means a Neanderthal mentality or that the car belongs to Jason. “LaDue Rams” means one of two different things, depending on whether you regard the word “Rams” as a noun or a verb. We’re all panacheologists from the time we’re old enough to make judgments about others. “What’s right and what’s wrong?” is really a very simple question if you remember that the things you like and esteem are right while the things you dislike and eschew are wrong. Simple enough, after all, somewhere there’s a whole crew of “Tracy’s Karate” devotees, all actually thinking that everyone else has but one oar in the water! People would like to say that teenagers, being the most cliquish and status-conscious, are the heaviest indulgers of paacheology, but I don’t think so. Try wearing a plaid sports coat, pin-striped shirt, and flowered tie (as I’ve done on several occasions) and see how other narrowminded, tactless, tasteless, xenophobic, boorish people view.

It doesn’t bother me though.

Now that panacheology, like so many other things, is “out of the closet” (so to speak), “In Your Ear,” as a service to its reader(s), offers an objective list of criteria by which to judge your fellow man/feman/ person.

This list, developed during years of study while buzzing Steak ‘N Shake (“In sight it must be right”) and eating breakfasts at the West End Cafe, will enable you to take all the guesswork out of judging others.

The three categories are simple enough: Out To Lunch; Dull But Booring; and Fat City. (For those of you still wearing slide rules and, therefore, reading this column by mistake, Out To Lunch is bad and Fat City is good.) For your convenience, I suggest that you cut this chart from the paper and have it laminated so that you can carry it in your wallet at all times. Like any true science, panacheology requires many years of study before the content can be mastered.

This list should be your guide. Out To Lunch

—ties that plug in or squirt water

—bumper stickers containing any of the following words: love, car wash, vacation spot, Gene McNary

—bookcases filled with anything besides books

—stockings with reinforced toes worn with open-toed shoes. (Is it true that an “open-toed shoe” is an extroverted frog telling a fly to leave?)

—any book which tells how to look younger, lose weight, save a marriage, tune a car, or solve problems in 60 seconds

—short sleeve shirts worn with vests

—Michael Jackson’s left glove Dull But Booring

—finely manicured lawns and unmanicured toenails

—four-door sedans with clear plastic seat covers

—a television set in the living room

—blue jeans with creases

—foreheads without creases

—paper napkins unless accompanied by plasticware

—red apples

—the Football Cardinals’ offense

—any restaurant where you can order your food by talking to a mechanical box

—Walter Mondale

—books with happy endings unless designed for crayon use

—Henry Goldbloom

—people who read this column Fat City!

—Volkswagen convertibles with rust spots

—beards (on men)

—cigars (for men or very strong women)

—books whose only lesson is that there is no lesson (if you understand that, consider the consistencies of inconsistency)

—clocks that are older than their owners

—Captain Frank Fiorello

—people who memorize this column Go, dear reader, to your summer of baseball, beer, cable television debates (it’s not over yet), and mosquitoes. Keep this chart and bear with you these words to live by: “Friends come and go, but enemies accrue.”

Originally published in The Times of Skinker-DeBaliviere, June 1984.

Read this article in the original newspaper issue.