Dear Dr. Wally...

Dear Dr. Wally,

I see these signs along the road in the mountains north of Broken Elbow. They look like a truck driving down a wedge of cheese with a percentage added. What do they mean? They always appear near the top of Donut Pass, which seems to be a very popular name for these mountain passes. They're everywhere!

Puzzled in Poteau

You must be a natural blond, Puzzled. The state highway department puts those 'truck on cheese' signs in places where mobile pizzerias will be located in the future, right after federal stimulus money reinvigorates the cheese mining business. As you're no doubt aware, many of our nation's mozarella mines were forced to shut down due to cheap imported cheese from China. But, as our balance of payments have shifted, so too the mozarella business has changed. Soon, American workers will be back on the job producing the very finest cheeses from those deep mines under the Gruyere Mountains in northern Wisconsin.

Also, I'm glad you've noticed the Donut Pass signs, because quite frankly the state DOT misspelled them and didn't notice until hundreds had been painted. As a cost-cutting measure, they kept the misspelled signs because as we all know, spelling is highly over-rated anyway. Just like the pizzaria signs, these ones indicate a good spot for a donut shop, and they too are another attempt to stimulate our economy by investing in the production of high-speed donut boring tools for making those nice, round holes, and the automated donut lathes used to produce wonderfully rounded donuts from crudely finished industrial billets.

So do your part, Puzzled, and eat more to make America strong again!

Dr. Wally

Next month: Gluttony and bicycle touring