In Challenge to Group of 8, Supermodels Host Own Summit

TOYAKO, Japan.  Miffed by what they view as the undue attention being given to world political leaders at the so-called “Group of 8″ superpowers’ summit conference here, eight “supermodels” have convened a competing “World Summit of Beautiful Leaders” to consider issues of global importance.

Imagine–a world without supermodel conflict.

“There are many important but boring things to talk about in the world,” said Gisele Bundchen, representing Brazil.  “Wouldn’t you rather hear about them from our sensuous, pouty lips?” added Elle Macpherson of Australia.

Macpherson:  “Global warming is so–warm!”

Other “superpower” nations represented at the summit are the United States (Tyra Banks), the United Kingdom (Lisa Snowdon), Czechoslovakia (Paulina Porizkova), Canada (Linda Evangelista), Germany (Claudia Schiffer) and Sweden, whose Marcus Schenkenberg, like Andrea Merkel of Germany, is the lone representative of his sex among the group.

Schenkenberg:  “Why did I get the same goodie bag as the women?”

The supermodels issued a press release after a morning plenary session decrying the influence of unattractive politicians in the media.  “It is no wonder that people are alienated from politics when so many of our world leaders are simply too gross to look at on television,” the manifesto read.  “If they would pluck their eyebrows and maybe put some blusher on their cheekbones the world would be a better place, or at least a better-looking place.”

Buffet lunch

Hunger topped the agenda after lunch, which consisted of celery stalks, cigarettes and bottled water.  “Hunger could be eradicated in our lifetime if people would just learn to restrain themselves as we have,” the models declared. 

Kobe beef:  Low turnover-to-assist ratio

“We have today shared a single stalk of celery among us while world ‘leaders’ chowed down on disgusting Kobe beef,” said the US’s Tyra Banks.  “We cannot believe they were such barbarians as to eat the NBA’s 2008 Most Valuable Player, even if he did stink out the joint in the finals against the Celtics.”

Ask the Car Guy

Summertime is driving fun time, unless your vehicle is a garbage truck or there’s a guy in the back seat with a gun who demands that you take him to an Eagles reunion concert.  How do you keep your car in tip-top shape in the summer heat?  Ask the Car Guy!

Dear Car Guy:

My wife and I decided to get our daughter a new car as a surprise graduation gift.  I went down to the Toyota dealer after work to take care of it since it was my wife’s bowling night.  I called her up after I signed the papers (my wife, not my daughter–that would have ruined the surprise) and told her I got the Toyota Highlander, not the Sport model just the basic one without leather seats.  My wife started screaming and said don’t you know that if you drive around in a Highlander with the back windows down and the front windows up your head will explode, she heard it on the Today Show or 60 Minutes, she couldn’t remember which.

Car Guy, now I am worried that my daughter will forget about the back window problem some night and her head will explode or she will be permanently disfigured, which will hurt her marriage prospects as she already looks like my mother-in-law.  Any suggestions?

Durnell Holman, Knob Noster MO

“Why is that little light blinking?”

Dear Durnell–

Relax!  While the Highlander did indeed suffer from the exploding head defect from the time it was first introduced in 2001 until 2007, Toyota has added a warning light to the 2008 model that gives drivers ample warning before they lose consciousness.  Bonus safety feature–if only one rear window is rolled down damage is limited to internal organs.

Oldsmobile Delta 88–sweet.

Mr. Car Guy–

Last night I let my son Wayne borrow my 1998 Oldsmobile Delta 88 to take his girlfriend Sue Ellen to the Dairy Freeze, we were out of ice cream.  They didn’t get home until like 12:30, and this morning I noticed there’s a big spot on the back seat.  I asked Wayne how it got there and he says “Dad, with a front engine/rear-wheel drive layout you often get transmission fluid leaking into the back seat cushion, don’t get all bent out of shape.”  Do you think Wayne is lying?

Oren Embree, Paducah, Kentucky

“That spot?  Uh, the ice cream melted.”

Dear Oren:

Our children represent the future, and we must trust them if they are ever going to mature into irresponsible adults such as us.  Because the Delta 88 featured the patented “Tilt-Away” steering wheel, there would be no need for teenagers to crawl into the backseat to “do what comes naturally”.  You are apparently projecting your unfulfilled sexual needs onto your son, and your time would be better spent trolling the internet.

Dear Mr. Car Guy Man–

There is this girl at school who I will call “Tina” because that is her name who is nice to me whenever I drive to school but if I have to walk she ignores me and just hangs out with the Pep Squad.  I tried out for the Pep Squad but didn’t make it because my stupid mother put my pom-poms in the washer the night before and they came out looking like overcooked spaghetti.  How can I tell if “Tina” likes me for who I am or is just “along for the ride.”

Linda Lou Holcomb, Hoxie, Arkansas

Dear Linda Lou–

You should not hold a grudge against your mother as she apparently allows you to drive to school sometimes, which is more than a lot of kids get.  I have referred your question to the Teen Beat columnist, who will answer it if space permits.

Pepsi-Cola hits the spot!

Hey Car Guy–

I have been told if your radiator overheats you can use soda to cool it down until you get to a gas station.  Last night I asked this girl Lurleen who I was on a first date with if I could pour her Diet Dr. Pepper into my six-cylinder Honda as the needle was inching up into the “red zone”, and she says “Don’t you know anything?  Diet soda only works in four cylinder engines.”  When I got to the Sunoco station out on South 65 the guy says your cylinders are scored, you need to get them sleeved quick or else you’ll have to buy a whole new engine block.  I told Lurleen she had to walk home, I wasn’t going to risk any more damage, and now she’s gone and told everybody I’m not a gentleman.  The way I see it, she should pay my repair bill.  What do you think?

Mike Dalton, Jr., Ottumwa, Iowa

Next time, come prepared.

Dear Mike–

The answer to your question depends on the “ground rules” you set before Lurleen ever got into your car.  Unless you agreed to go “Dutch treat”, your date has no liability for engine damage even if you paid for her soda, according to Dewayne Norman, a divorce lawyer who has written extensively on pre-marital dating claims.  You can get a good styrofoam cooler for $1.99 at any Kwik-Trip convenience store, and I suggest that next time you come prepared for an emergency with extra cans of soda.  The Honda owner’s manual recommends Mountain Dew.

Injuries Are Few in Annual Running of the Cats

SOMERVILLE, Mass.  When this suburb of Boston decided to become a “sister city” with Pamplona, Spain a decade ago, few realized what it would mean for the many cat-owners who live here.

El gato de Somervilla

“We have cats the way some cities have cockroaches,” says animal officer Hardy Michaels.  “There are more apartment dwellers here per capita than any city in Massachusetts, so we have more cats.  Also a lot of goldfish, but they don’t get out as much.”

Running of the bulls, Pamplona

Pamplona is the site of the annual running of the bulls made famous by Ernest Hemingway’s 1926 novel “The Sun Also Rises”, however, and when officials from the Spanish sister city visited Somerville in 1998, they asked why there was no counterpart to their annual San Fermin festival, generally regarded as the world’s leading manifestation of innate male stupidity.

 

Somerville, Mass.

“Frankly, we were caught off guard,” says Elinor Harrity, who chaired the Committee on International Relations that the City Council set up because they found the topic of sewers boring.  “We improvised to show our Spanish compadres that we meant them no disrespect, and the running of the cats was born.”

“Look out–here comes a tabby!”

All able-bodied males take to the streets of Somerville on July 7th, the day of the San Fermin festival, for eight scheduled runs before a pack of cats that has been fed only dry food and water for a week, whetting their appetite.  “It is a sign of your manhood to risk your life running before the jaws and claws of the hungry cats,” says Andrew Benis, a freelance photographer who recently broke up with his girlfriend of six years.  “Women admire a brave man, but what’s the point if you get trampled to death by a bull before you can score?”

Relaxing before the run.

Last year, two men were admitted to Mt. Auburn Hospital with claw scratches on their calves and small puncture wounds on their hands that they suffered when they were bitten as they tried to remove attacking cats from their legs.  “You see your whole life flash before you when those cats come tearing around a street corner,” says George VandeKamp, who works in a used record store.  “Of course, when your life has been as uneventful as mine so far, that’s not such a big deal.”

Because of its density, city officials say they would never issue a permit for a running of the bulls here, not that such an event is very likely.  “It’s pretty rare to see a bull around here,” says Assistant Chief of Police Dan Hampy, “although you certainly hear a ton of it any time you walk into a bar.”

For One Charity, Walk-a-Thon Brings Mix of Pledges, Pain

BOSTON.  Caitlin Morgan was excited when she was hired by the National Ingrown Toenail Foundation as its first full-time development director, but also a little nervous.  “The organization was dying from a lack of funds,” says the recent graduate of Boston University’s graduate program in Non-Profit Administration.  “Their annual gala only made about $20,000, and their telethon was in the red because people were just volunteering so they could make free long-distance calls.”

 

“Hi, it’s me.  Yeah, third from the right.  No, my right, not yours.”

With wealthy donors feeling the pinch of a sluggish stock market and competition from other charities eating into her donor base, Caitlin opted for a fund-raising event the organization had never tried before–a 20-mile walk-a-thon led by Ted Nelson, a local TV news anchor, with a tie-in to a regional healthcare giant, the New England Insititute of Chiropody.

“Ouch!”

“Our board of trustees was really excited for the first time in a long while,” says Executive Director Martin Schramm.  “I give Caitlin a lot of credit for her idea, even if it didn’t exactly turn out the way she planned.”

Crowded first aid tent.

Problems began to surface as early as the half-mile mark.  The charity’s 2008 poster child, ten year-old Chris Connor, dropped out when he saw Richie’s Slush cart, a sidewalk vendor who had set up shop along the route from suburban Wellesley into Boston.  “Gimme one quick!” the boy cried, unable to go on and forced to use some of his pledge money to pay two dollars for a large lemon-lime, which he promptly poured over his feet.  “I wanna go home,” he sniffled through tears, as his parents angrily turned on the anchorman who had been walking with the boy in the front row.  “I’ll never watch your news show again,” Mel Connors snapped at the startled broadcaster.  “And your pouffy hairdo looks stupid.”

Local news anchorman:  “Another charity walk?  Include me out.”

The number of defections picked up at the two-mile mark, as long-time ingrown toenail sufferers said they could go no further.  “Why couldn’t we just raffle off a mini-van?” asked Jeanine Sousa, a former restaurant hostess whose career was cut short by ingrown toenails.

“I quit!”

The ranks of walkers thinned by the time they had reached the city limits of Newton, causing confusion as volunteers stumbled through red lights, causing drivers to grow angry.  “You call that a walk-a-thon?” asked Neil Varga, driver for a local van service that transports the elderly to doctor’s appointments and on shopping trips.  “My senior citizens could walk rings around you!”

 

“Next year, let’s just sell carnations or something.”

For Caitlin, who was dismissed by the foundation this morning after the fiasco hit the papers, the event has been a learning experience that she will take to her next job, whatever it may be.  “If I’d known people were going to yell at me,” she says with a look that conveys chagrin at her first professional failure, “I would have suggested a silent auction.”

A Fourth of July Salute to America’s Hand-Fishers

On this, the 4th of July, a day intimately associated with liberty, it is appropriate to reflect on the strides this nation has made to expand freedom in the world of sport.  Think of Jackie Robinson, the first African-American to play major league baseball.  Consider Kathrine Switzer, the first woman to run the Boston Marathon.  Or how about Manny Ramirez, the first Dominican outfielder to take a leak behind a manually-operated scoreboard during a pitching change in an American League game.  Truly, as a nation, we have much to be proud of.

Kathrine Switzer, failing the Boston Marathon cojones test.

But many are surprised to hear that, until very recently, there were still obstacles to full participation in the athletic endeavors that make this country great.  One such barrier fell the other day, as the state of Missouri made it legal, for the first time, to “noodle”, or fish with one’s hands.

A guy named Phil, with a giant catfish caught by hand

As a teenage boy in a small Missouri town, I often worked with country people who spoke of noodling.  Not having much interest in fishing, I never accompanied them on their clandestine trips to muddy creek banks, where they told me they would stick their arms into hollow logs, risking bites by snakes or snapping turtles, to catch catfish by hand.  As a result, I have wrongly assumed all these years that the fish they caught would fit on a dinner plate. 

It turns out these men were diving under water, holding their breath and sticking their arms into catfish “holes” where they would grab fresh-water behemoths, smaller than a jet ski but not by much, and wrestle them into submission.  Where noodling is permitted, a fish must typically be as much as two feet long in order to be a legal catch.  Catfish are bottom feeders who will remain stationary for long periods of time, eating anything that floats by, and as a result can grow to be enormous.

“He followed me home–can I keep him?”

You would think that the Missouri legislature, in its wisdom, would have long ago followed the example of the other eleven states where handfishing (also referred to as “hogging”) is legal, and let man and fish fight it out fair and square.  Missouri’s scruples in the area of man-fish relations stemmed not from fear for fisherman’s safety, but from a solicitous regard for the fishes’ sex life.  Handfishing, according to fish and game officials, depletes the number of sexually mature fish.  Well, what do you want noodlers to do–knock before entering?

Moby Catfish

Since moving to the east coast thirty-five years ago, I’ve gone deep-sea fishing a number of times and had naively formed the opinion that it is more challenging than fresh-water fishing.  Having conducted further research into hand-fishing, I now believe that the only way ocean fishing could measure up to the challenge of noodling is for the beer-sodden men who pay hundreds of dollars to fish off Florida or Cape Cod to crawl overboard, find a bluefish or a marlin and subdue their prey using nothing but wrestling holds learned on WWE Royal Rumble.

Exhausted noodlers

So here’s to America’s hand-fishers, true sportsmen who eschew fish-finders and other high tech doo-dads that unfairly tilt the pond in favor of humans.  I salute you, but I have one request. 

If you don’t mind, I’d rather not shake your hand.

Coriolis Force Keeps Things Topsy-Turvy Down Under

AUCKLAND, New Zealand.  The morning skies are grey as our plane touches down at Auckland Airport, but that doesn’t dampen our spirits as my family and I peer out the windows for our first glance at New Zealand, the adopted homeland of my cousin Mary Beth and her husband Gary.

Auckland Airport

“I wanna go to the bathroom and check out the sink,” my son says.

He is referring to the Coriolis effect, the force first described by French scientist Gaspard-Gustave Coriolis that causes water in sinks and toilets in the Southern hemisphere to drain in a counterclockwise direction, the opposite of what we Americans are used to seeing in the Northern hemisphere.

“Not now, sweetie, the seatbelt light is still on,” my wife says.

“We’ll have plenty of time for that later,” I say as we pull to a stop and passengers stand up and begin to de-board.

We spy Mary Beth and Gary as we emerge from the jetway and, after hugs and kisses all around, Mary Beth asks if we’d like to grab some dinner.

“But it’s nine o’clock in the morning,” I say, a bit puzzled.

Now it’s her turn to act surprised.  “Yes–so what?”

“Uh, I think the kids should get some breakfast in them,” my wife says.

Suddenly, the source of our confusion becomes apparent to Mary Beth.  “You two are still on Northern hemisphere meal times,” she says with a laugh.  “Down here, we start the day with meat, potatoes, cauliflower–the works!”

“Cauliflower in the morning?  Gross!”

I look at the kids, who don’t seem enthusiastic.  “We’ll just grab some orange juice,” I say as we head towards the short-term parking lot.

We stow our luggage in the trunk of our hosts’ car, and Gary eases his way out of the parking lot.

“Look out!” my wife exclaims as Gary pulls into the left-hand lane of the high-speed motorway that surrounds the airport.

“What?” Gary replies, somewhat startled.

“Oh, I forgot, you drive on the left-hand side down here,” my wife replies, a bit calmer now.

“Yeah, and not just that–watch,” Gary says as he makes a sharp right-hand turn from the left-hand lane.

My wife is unimpressed.  “People do that all the time in America,” she says.  “We call them ’senior citizens’.”

I glance in the sideview mirror and notice a double-trailer truck bearing down on us at high speed.  “Uh, Gary,” I say a little nervously.  “You see that truck coming, right?”

“That guy?” Gary replies.  “Don’t worry–I’ve got plenty of room,” he says as he pulls into the passing lane.  “You forgot–objects in mirrors are further away than they appear down here.”

“Oh, right–the Coriolis effect,” I say.

We take an exit ramp and stop at the toll gate.

“From the airport?” the attendant says as he examines the ticket that Gary hands him.  “I owe you four dollars and twenty-five cents.” 

“Wow,” my wife says.  “They pay you to drive on the highway?”

“It’s the Coriolis effect!” Mary Beth exclaims.  “We used to take the bus but they only pay you $1.50 for that!”

Gary tells us a little bit about the country as we head into downtown Auckland.  “Did you know that there are more sheep than people in New Zealand?” he asks the kids.

“Wow,” my daughter says, fascinated.

“We have lots of sheep in America too, sweetie,” my wife says to her.

“We do?”

Mel Carnahan

“Yes, like people who elected Mel Carnahan to the Senate after he died.”

The kids nod in wonderment, and Gary pulls up in front of a movie theatre.

“Are we going to a movie?” my son asks.

“It’s such a hot day, I thought this would be a good place to keep cool,” Gary says.

“What’s playing?” my wife asks.

“It’s a noir Presbyterian film festival,” Mary Beth says.  “Really dark themes with perverse characters and ironic plot twists.”

My wife, a lifelong member of the United Church of Christ, the straightest Protestant denomination in America, absorbs this information with a disturbed look on her face.

“You mean–no happy endings, or upbeat sound tracks?”

Olivia Newton-John

“No,” Gary explains.  “The Coriolis force has a significant impact on our popular culture.  Take Olivia Newton-John,” he says, referring to the relentlessly pleasant Australian pop singer.  “The only people who listen to her down here are depressed, suicidal Goth kids.”

My wife recoils involuntarily, as if someone has just punched her in the gut.  She may be experiencing Coriolis-induced vertigo, a malady that affects travelers from the Northern hemisphere much as Montezuma’s Revenge keeps American tourists confined to Mexican hotel bathrooms.

She looks nauseated, and I put my hand on her forehead.  “Are you okay?” I ask.

She takes a deep breath, then blurts out–”I want to go home!”

Pro Teams Turn to Personal Butt Licenses to Build New Stadiums

DALLAS.  With skyrocketing player salaries and rising materials costs undermining their ability to build state-of-the stadiums, owners of professional sports teams find themselves between a rock and a hard place these days.  ”It used to be we could look to the state or the city for a little something to cover infrastructure,” says Cowboys’ owner Jerry Jones.  “Now they tell us they’ve gone and blown all their money on stupid stuff like schools, firemen and policemen, and we’re left high and dry.”  

Texas Stadium:  “Hey–I was sitting there!”

So Jones, who had already imposed “personal seat licenses” on long-time fans which, for as much as $150,000, merely give them the right to buy season tickets, came up with the idea of the “personal butt license” to cover his funding gap.  “The seat license gives you the right to buy the ticket to the seat,” says Martin Zimwurtz, an economist who studies the economics of professional sports because it’s more fun than poverty.  “The butt license gives you the right to put your butt in the seat that is licensed to you.”

“Dude–I got a personal body paint license!”

Other teams with new stadiums on the drawing board are looking closely at the Cowboys’ move, and considering other add-on fees of their own.  “Many of our fans like to touch inappropriate parts of their bodies while the TV cameras are scanning the stands,” says New York Giants’ co-owner John Mara.  “That depresses our advertising revenues, so people are going to have to ‘pay to pick’ if they want us to win another Super Bowl.”

In Arizona, where the football Cardinals just moved into the University of Phoenix and Mel’s Weed-Wacker Supply Stadium, patrons can upgrade to body odor-free seats for a one-time Air Wick Room De-odorizer charge.

“A lot of our fans get kinda sweaty on the long walk from the parking lot to their seats, so we’re putting six-foot room de-odorizers in designated VIP seating sections,” says Arthur Bidwill, Vice President of Nepotism for the team.  “The addition of these fine Air Wick products will not interfere with play on the field, where our team always stinks.”

Full Disclosure: I’m Not Telling the Whole Truth

You can tell that a writer is trying to hide something from you when you run into one of those “Full disclosure” parentheticals in the middle of an article.  Example: “Full disclosure: My views on the monetary roots of inflation have been tempered since supermodel Heidi Klum smiled at me in line at an ATM in New York.” 

Heidi Klum: “I am done withdrawing 70 million Euros–your turn.”

The trick to the “full disclosure” rhetorical device is to reveal too much and too little at the same time.  Parsing the subtext of the above disclosure, one can translate it thusly: “Full disclosure: My knowledge of the American banking system is limited to the balance on my ATM slip, and the last time a woman came on to me was when Paula Ferguson handed me a note in 8th grade that said ‘I think you’re a dreamboat.’”

Financial advice columnist:  “If I actually knew what I was talking about, I wouldn’t be writing a lousy newspaper column for food-stamp wages.”

The full disclosure/non-disclosure trick is common in financial advice columns.  “Full disclosure,” the stock market analyst writes.  “I hold shares of Acme Techinfotronicsmatrix in my IRA.”  What he doesn’t tell you is that he’s the love child of the CEO and Wanda Turner, a woman who temped at the company 35 years ago, and is looking to dump the stock like a hot rock as soon as suckers like you buy it.

“Who is the goofy-looking guy with the note pad?”

The political “full disclosure” is usually intended to puff up the credentials of the writer as someone who is so close to the white-hot blast furnace of Washington power that his plastic “Fred Thompson ‘08″ water bottle melted.  E.g.–”Full disclosure: While I was not actually alive at the time of the 1945 Yalta summit, my ideas have generally been credited as the inspiration for Winston Churchill’s ‘Iron Curtain’ speech and the theme song of The Pinky Lee Show.”

Pinky Lee

Scientific ”Full disclosures” are often little more than attempts to intimidate potential critics of the writer’s views. “Full disclosure”, writes a proponent of the controversial ”cold fusion” theory–”I am the spawn of shape-shifting mud vipers from the planet Glzorp, who have been cross-bred with blood-sucking humanoids.  So watch it.”

Blood-sucking humanoid, relaxing on a pristine Naples, Florida beach.

Once you understand the sinister intent behind this highly deceptive device, you’ll be better prepared the next time you bump up against the left parentheses of a “Full disclosure” scam to plumb the author’s hidden agenda.

Full disclosure: Web “Cookies” have been implanted on your computer while you read this article, and I have applied for a Home Depot credit card in your name.

Not-So-Great Courses a Reminder of College’s Downside

URBANA, Illinois.  Tillie Peterson’s college days were cut short forty-five years ago when, at the age of 20, she decided to get married.  “I’ve never regretted that decision,” she says, “but I’ve always wondered how my life would have turned out if I’d gotten my degree.”

Tillie: Eager to learn.

Like many senior citizens with time on their hands and a desire to keep their minds active, Tillie is considering a return to college in her golden years, a development that concerns her husband Lowell.  “I’m an old-timer,” he says.  “I can’t be learning how to make coffee or a baloney sandwich at my age.  I need Tillie around the house.”

Lowell and Personal Anti-Academic Advisor

So Lowell contacted the Not-So-Great-Course Company, which produces video and cassette tapes of boring or just plain bad college lectures that can be used to discourage those who are eager to learn.  “We have just about every flavor you can think of,” says President Mark Adamle.  “The professor who lectures to his shoestrings, the war-story maven who never gets around to the course material, you name it.”

“Come to think of it–you’re right.  College really sucked!”

The Not-So-Great-Course Company has attracted criticism and a threat of legal action from the Great Course Company, which tapes lectures by outstanding college professors in a variety of fields and promotes them through ads in high-brow publications such as The New York Times Book Review and Weed Wacker Monthly.  “They’re trading on our name and undermining our message,” says the Great Course Company’s Greg Mayo, “which is that you’re never too old to learn but you may be too old to drive to your local community college.”

“These kids let me copy their crib notes!”

Lowell hasn’t completely discouraged Tillie from going back to school, but she has agreed for the time being to limit her commitment to a single offering–Macaroni Art of the Italian Renaissance–an introductory course favored by athletic scholarship students at the University of Illinois who take it to fulfill a first-year humanities requirement.  As Tillie takes her seat in the middle section of the lecture hall, she is unaware that the “jocks” are using her as a square on their “Dweeb Bingo” cards.  If three students on a card speak in class and the player successfully works the word “Bingo” into a subsequent answer, he wins the day’s pot, which can sometimes exceed $10.

“Bingo!”

“I think macaroni art is a symbol of man’s yearning to use the foods of the Middle Ages as the inspiration for the more refined aesthetic products of the Renaissance,” Tillie says, and Jason Girardin, a 240-pound offensive lineman in the back row, pounces.

Macaroni art

“I don’t know, professor,” he says with a smirk.  “If you get hungry and eat the art, then bingo–you’re right back in the Dark Ages.”

Copyright 2008, Con Chapman

Inward Bound Teaches Rural High School Kids Suburban Ropes

GREEN RIDGE, Missouri.  Brooke Bennett grew up in this tiny hamlet nestled among fields of sorghum, lespedeza and timothy.  “It was great to be a kid here,” she says of a childhood spent milking cows and raising calves for auction at her 4-H Club, “but it’s time for me to move on.”

Lespedeza: Not available at a grocery store near you.

Brooke is valedictorian of her class and has been accepted at Wellesley College in suburban Wellesley, Massachusetts.  Before she arrives on campus, however, she and other “GRTS”, an acronym that stands for “General Rural Talent Search”, will spend a week at Inward Bound, a rural-to-suburban “boot camp” that teaches them how to survive in an upscale suburb.

“You think I should have ordered the Double Choco-Mocha instead of the Strawbanna Smoothie?”

“These kids know nothing but fresh air and small-town values like thrift and hard-work,” says Inward Bound camp counselor Meghan Fritz, who herself came from a small town to attend Northwestern University in Evanston, Illinois, a suburb of Chicago.  “We teach them how to survive in the jungle of a suburban shopping mall.”

“I don’t know how I ever lived without a Push-Up Bra!”

Inward Bound is modelled after Outward Bound, the program that develops self-esteem in troubled youth by plunking them down in wilderness settings and teaching them how to survive on minimal food, tools and guidance from adults.  Inward Bound drops off groups of four girls with nothing but a cell phone, a credit card, and a copy of Teen Girl Power magazine (this month’s feature: “Are You a Hannah or a Miley Girl?) at a multi-level shopping mall, and forces them to survive a harrowing weekend of mulish adolescent boys and catty remarks from other, more sophisticated girls.

“I was like really scared at first,” says Melinda Fallows, a native of Hoxie, Arkansas, who will attend Georgetown University in the fall.  “All we had to eat was chewing gum and Starbucks Frappucinos, and we couldn’t buy anything on sale unless we spent our own money.”  Melinda emerged from the experience a more self-confident young woman, says her mother Tina.  “Before Inward Bound she dressed like she was President of the National Honor Society, which she was,” Tina says.  “Once she maxxed out her credit card she looked like a cross between a professor of women’s studies and a pole dancer.”