How many times does your heart beat per year?

Cecil's Columns/Staff Reports
1

http://www.straightdope.com/classics/a1_088a.html

My only question: Why does Slug’s cartoon feature a rooster drinking a martini?

I fear that I am not yet so great in wisdom.

2

[goes to sit with Toadspittle in the Unenlightened Ones’ Corner]

Me, too. We both await enlightenment…

Hey, TS, got any chips?

3

There’s only 240 words in the question and answer instead of the usual 600 or so. I’m guessing the picture might go with another q&a that appeared alongside the heartbeat q&a on Feb. 6, 1976.

On the other hand, it could go with this question, in which case I can only say it’s never wise to probe too deeply into Slug’s thought processes.

4

I bet that this originally appeared in a column where the main question and answer were about “Why are cocktails called cocktails?”

Think about it.

5

Well, there is such a column, but Cecil didn’t write it:

http://www.straightdope.com/mailbag/mcocktail.html

If Cecil did write about that, it ain’t in the archives.

6

This is just my WAG.

  1. The Master has already answered a question regarding hearts, chickens, and alcoholic beverages:
    "Does Budweiser beer contain … chicken hearts?"
    http://www.straightdope.com/classics/a1_356b.html
    (This column was also in “The Straight Dope”, pp 356-8, with a wonderful Slug chicken-heart-beer illustration that seems to be missing from the online archive).

  2. Although Cecil’s reply to the question suggests a negative, Slug may have inferred the chicken/heart/beer connection.

  3. Thus, when the question is asked:
    How many heartbeats does the average person have in one year? (which is the wording of the actual question in the OP link, How many times does your heart beat per year? being the column title),

Slug may have answered as though channeling a chicken:
a) Beer contains chicken hearts.
b) THUS, if I wish to have “more heartbeats” I should go to my local fowl-friendly tavern and knock back a few.
c) This being a chicken, and in a Slug illustration to boot, one should not quibble that the glass used resembles a martini or wine glass rather than a customary vessel for beer.

G*d, I hope I’m not right. I hate to think that my mind works like an alcoholic chicken’s.

Antonius Block

P.S. Or even worse, like Slug’s…