Henrietta Hay's Column

Do you ever worry because you don't have enough to worry about? I've been doing some research on the subject, and have come up with some solutions. Here's a beauty. Some call it the "Doomsday Rock." Now this is not some little pebble that might cause a ripple. It is an asteroid six or seven miles in diameter, traveling at a speed of 16 miles a second. Those in the know, if anyone can be said to know stuff like this, tell us that the one of these hummers hits the earth about once in every 300,000 to a million years. If it should happen to hit, it would cause an explosion a billion times bigger than Hiroshima. The thing you can really worry about is the possibility that the last one hit the earth 999,999 years ago. You can also worry about the fact that Congress has called for a series of "detailed studies" of the potential event. That's almost as frightening as the asteroid.

Cathy of comic strip fame is a consummate worrier. According to her, her very existence is a threat and she feels compelled to worry about everything from the color of her lipstick to the height of the heels on her shoes. That may not seem like a major set of problems to you or me, but it keeps her in constant turmoil. If all else fails, you can always worry about personal things like the right tone of blush for morning, or matching your socks to your necktie.

Some time in the past somebody passed a law saying that we must have eight hours of sleep a night. Or maybe it was some doctor that said it. In any case, we all tend to believe it. Franklin P. Adams commented that "Insomniacs don't sleep because they worry about it, and they worry about it because they don't sleep." I know, because used to worry like mad if I got less than the traditional eight hours. But then I read a book that said, in effect, phooey. If you can get eight hours, fine. But if you wake up in the middle of the night and can't get back to sleep, it's not really necessary to lie there and worry about the damage you are doing to your health. If you want to worry, fine. It's a good, solid worry subject. But if you don't, you can at least enjoy being awake and do something constructive, like reading a book or cleaning the kitchen.

If your worrying has lost a little steam, there is always politics. If you are a Democrat you worry about the Republicans who are ruining the country. If you are a Republican you worry about the Democrats who are ruining the country. And if you aren't either one, the rest of us worry about your apathy. Certainly on the political scene there are enough things to worry about to keep all of us going for the rest of our lives, like the deficit, the S&L debacle, the Supreme Court, Congress and Mr. Bush's health.

And then you can always worry about your own health. Every week there is a new study disproving something that the last study proved, and you can worry about which one to believe. Anything that we eat, breathe or drink can kill us and, of course, eventually will. So you can really let your worry gene run free on this one. The last I heard, the killer bees were getting closer to Texas. They are not moving too quickly, since they have been on their way from Brazil for the past 35 years or so. Even so, the worry factor is increasing day by day.

What if you won $3 million dollars in the lottery? That is worth several days of serious worry. What would you do with the money? Would you share it or hoard it like Jack Benny? Would you buy a Ferrari or a Bentley? Would you keep on working at that job you love to hate, or take a five-year vacation? These are serious questions deserving of a high degree of worry.

If you write a weekly column for any publication at all you can worry that you will wake up on Monday morning without an idea, and go to bed Friday night in the same condition. You can worry, like my friend the philosopher, about math or you can worry about the way computers are taking over the world.

With luck some of these worries will help keep the legitimate ones at bay. Every time I feel a major worry coming on, I'll think of that big rock in the sky.