National Science Foundation wasting money, Jell-O

As if our government hasn't enough to do, from the agonizing pressure of "evolving" the food pyramid into a dinner plate to the horrendous strain of regulating how many forms we must fill out in order to buy a house or a car or start a business or pay taxes or hide assets ... uh ... (not that I ever did that ... I'm sure the fine people at the Internal Revenue Service -- who should certainly be paid MUCH more! -- enjoy a good joke as much as the next guy!).

But, now we find that there are folks in government somewhere -- probably in some tiny, boring, cubicle-type office without a window and with no other orders except to "SPEND MONEY ANYWHERE YOU POSSIBLY CAN, ON ANYTHING YOU COULD POSSIBLY SPEND IT ON, AS FAST AS POSSIBLE BEFORE THEY WAKE UP AND FIRE OUR ASSES!" -- who've been providing unlimited ATM services for the National Science Foundation on a constant basis (like 3 a.m., phone rings, "Hey man, we need more money up in here!" "No problem-o, my friend!") to do very important studies.

And, when I say "very important," I mean it ranks right up there with those tried-and-true government phrases like, "You gotta spend money to make money!" and "Wait ... where did we put that money?" But, still, I can definitely see the importance of some of these studies, and I don't at all resent the NSF's annual $6.9 billion budget, because the scientific benefits are so obvious.

Take, for example, the $559,681 they had to spend to test sick shrimps' metabolism, which, as one researcher reportedly said, was "the first time shrimp have ever been exercised on a treadmill!" That's right. They put shrimp who were apparently a little under the weather on a treadmill and studied their ability to keep up, and to recover afterward, and guess what? They found that sick shrimp "did not perform as well and did not recover as well from exercise as healthy shrimp." Wow!

(Of course, I, personally, don't perform as well on a treadmill when I'm feeling poorly and have been known to just stop walking, landing gracefully on my face on occasion. So, I'm willing to bet there were shrimp flying off those treadmills right and left, probably kicking them with all their little feet afterward and dragging themselves back to bed ... with teeny-tiny ice bags on their heads.)

Anyway, one can surely see the important scientific discovery here: Sick shrimp should probably stick to light water aerobics. And, that is absolutely worth $559,681!

Another study involved a robot hoedown and rodeo, which afforded scientists a priceless comprehension of the nature of robots, and the resultant discovery that nine out of 10 prefer classical over bluegrass. Now, who would begrudge hundreds of thousands of dollars to learn something so mind-blowing?!

Other valuable studies that caught my attention: How to make a YouTube rap video; a review of event ticket prices on stubhub.com; a virtual recreation of the 1964-65 New York's World's Fair; and a laundry-folding robot! (Please, is there a homemaker among us who doesn't immediately grasp the world-shaking importance of this last one? I only pray they have the funds to take that further -- dishwashing robots, housecleaning robots, bill-paying robots ... IRONING ROBOTS! Think of it, ladies ... dream big!)

But, my favorite thing of all that took place this year at the NSF's facility at McMurdo Research Station, Antarctica (motto: WE ARE @!%^#* FREEZING!!) was the employee Jell-O wrestling contest.

It gets damn boring down there at the South Pole, you know? What's wrong with spicing it up a little bit at taxpayer expense? It's the least we warm and toasty citizens can do for them, isn't it?

But no, the organizer of the Great Antarctic Jell-O Wrestling Contest "was fired, and the entire staff was lectured about the incident," although the fired organizer complained in a letter to the agency that they were a bunch of "fun nazis!"

I, for one, completely agree with him. If those poor frozen scientists could find the time away from the grueling hours exercising shrimp to warm up a bit by stripping down to their skivvies and diving into a pit of Jell-O, then I say where's the harm? In fact, I'm going to write them a check this very minute, to be used ONLY for Jell-O wrestling!

"While no agency is without flaws, NSF has an excellent track record of tracking down waste," said Dana Topousis, spokeswoman for the NSF, as she toweled lime Jell-O out of her hair. "We believe that no other funding agency in the world comes close to NSF for giving taxpayers the best return on their investment."

Bravo, Dana ... bravo!

Vicki Wentz's column, which appears here on Sundays, is published in newspapers across the country. She is a high school teacher who lives in Chapel Hill, N.C. Readers may contact her at vwentz@mindspring.com.