29 August—This received from a Monitor reader who evidently still reads the Hearst RepublicanAmerican: “Have to agree with Joyce from West Virginia about rubbing the plastic bag between hands for easy opening. It does work. Yes, I read Heloise daily. She’s definitely more informative than what passes for editorials in the Republican-American.”

Amen.

So yesterday—in the interest of journalistic integrity—I rubbed a couple of plastic produce bags at Aldi and a couple more at Stop & Shop. No luck at Aldi. But evidently I rubbed the Stop & Shop bags the right way and/or the type of polyethylene film they were made from (there are a few types, you can tell the difference, and it’s anybody’s guess which type will be available any given time in any given produce department) was more receptive to being rubbed.

Because the spit-on-fingers stratagem wasn’t necessary at Stop & Shop. Yesterday, anyway.

So let’s second-guess Heloise again. This morning “Bill in Chesterfield, Mo.,” recommends tung oil over mineral oil for cutting boards because of its shiny finish and says “it’s safe for food.” But Bill is lucky to be alive. And not because the nuts and other parts of the tung tree (Vernicia fordii) are toxic before they’re processed—because pure tung oil isn’t in fact toxic.

But consider that pure, non-toxic tung oil doesn’t in fact impart a shiny finish to wood or anything else on its own. Bill’s shiny finish is actually a function of toxic additives to most commonly available brands of tung oil. And mineral spirits and other drying agents further add to non-pure tung oil’s toxicity. So while pure tung oil is indeed safe to use on cutting boards, it doesn’t produce anything like a shiny finish.

Who wants stuff to slide around a glossy cutting board anyway? But if you do, there’s always the beeswax-mineral oil combo.

While we’re niggling, “Karen C., via email,” who’s 62 and has “a lot of hiccups on a regular basis,” dispels her bouts of singultus with peanut butter, about which she doesn’t go into detail. But Karen does assure Heloise and readers that “peanut butter is the only (and fastest) thing that works for me.”

Without descending into semantic superlative relativity, then, briefly consider the exclusionary meaning of “only.” And then forget about it. But one wonders if Karen had or has tried other nut-based butters in the interest of variety and science.

And don’t remind us that peanuts are legumes rather than nuts . . .