Henrietta Hay's Column

We live in weird times. There is war in Eastern Europe, mass starvation in Africa, crime and violence in America. But what are the most important topics we discuss over coffee or around the water cooler on work breaks or anywhere else we happen to gather? Olympic figure skating, Lorena Bobbitt and her butcher knife, pedophilia and how to murder your parents.

These things are acceptable conversational topics in America in the nineties. I read somewhere that the Bobbitts are considering getting back together, but I find that hard, let's say impossible, to believe. And thanks to several million dollars we will never know for sure whether Michael Jackson is innocent or guilty. Was Tonya really in on the plot? We'll just have to wait and see. Can the Menendez brothers hope for another pair of hung juries? Whatever the outcome of these very weird events they have certainly kept conversation flowing in recent weeks.

Maybe today's weirdness is not all that different from that in times past. Who knows, maybe the ancients stood around shaking their heads saying, "Do you suppose Ben Hur really drugged Messala's horses to keep him from winning the chariot race?" (Nah, Charlton Heston would never do that!) Or did a Roman centurion wake up one morning minus one of his body parts and dash out to the Coliseum to hunt for it? Who knows? Who cares?

There are lots of other newly acceptable conversation items to make this the Weird Decade. The approach to middle age of the huge Baby Boomer generation has brought about some startling changes in language and thinking. In my youth there were certain things that were almost never discussed and words that were absolutely never uttered. One of these is the word menopause. Women didn't even discuss it among themselves much, and if they did they never used that technical, medical word. They probably didn't know it.

Now, with the Boomer generation in its forties, it is the word of the hour. The advertising industry has discovered it. There are exercises, diets, tonics, vitamins, and medications -- all to ease that suddenly public phenomenon. Beautiful women are talking about it on TV and assuring us that all can be well. It is almost as though the Baby Boomers have invented menopause, and want to share it with everyone. Frankly, I think it is very funny.

I had been reading about it, but until it finally hit prime time I had not seen it. Last night for the first time I saw the ad, which had a little condom envelope hippety-hopping across a darkened room, waking up the sleeping cat and disappearing under the bedcovers. The cat looked thoroughly mystified. There was no comment from the people. I understand and approve the objective, but I do wonder whether the message was quite clear.

Congress contributes its share of weird. Some wag replaced the scale model of the Space Station Freedom with a Klingon Warship in the hearing room display case of the Congressional Science Space and Technology Committee. The Klingon ship survived several committee hearings without anybody noticing. Possibly the Congresspersons were catching up on their sleep. Anyway, they probably don't get home in time to watch any TV.

The State Legislature is contributing its share of bemusement. Not being a fisherperson, I have never met a greenback cutthroat trout, but it is probably going to be our State Fish. I wonder how many states have a State Fish. A fair amount of legislative time is going into this vitally important campaign. Oh well, I guess a state which has a State Dance (square), a State Fossil (stegosaurus) and a state Grass (blue grama) deserves a State Fish.

And then there is the flag, which I honor and respect but don't wave. A Denver judge ordered a flag with a yellow fringe border removed temporarily from her courtroom in order to expedite a case. The lege reacted as though she had committed treason. They passed a law that says every classroom and courtroom must have a flag on display at all times that said school or court is in session. They even specified the size of the flag for each of the estimated 33,000 classrooms in Colorado. As Molly Ivins would say, "What is it about the legislature?"

Are we a great country or not?