REFERENCE > TOP TEN ALTERNATIVE USES FOR A PICA RULER

In case you have been searching for some alternate uses for your pica ruler, here are a few suggestions:

Top Ten Alternative Uses for a Pica Ruler

10. Relieve those annoying itches by using your pica ruler as a backscratcher.

9. Try your luck by using it as a "extra-challenging" fly swatter.

8. Here's a shocker: use it to remove bread that gets stuck in the toaster. (Please don't try this without wearing rubber gloves!)

7. Create all sorts of unusual sounds by vibrating it on the edge of your desk while waiting for something to print (it can also serve as a one-keyed African finger piano).

6. Use it to punish yourself every time you forget to use proper curly quotes or whenever you type two spaces after a period.

5. Retrieve diskettes or CDs that are jammed in your computer, or remove objects that have fallen behind heavy pieces of office furniture.

4. Use it to butter bread and cut sandwiches when you don't have a knife.

3. Play doctor with that cute graphic designer in the next room... it makes the perfect tongue depressor.

2. Practise swallowing it so that you can get that sword swallowing job at the circus. Amaze your friends!

But the number one alternative use for a pica ruler is for the guys:

1. Use it to measure your manhood in picas! (It almost always makes you seem longer, and when the subject comes up in casual conversation, most laymen won't realize that there are six picas to the inch!)

ADDENDUM: 20 years after writing this amusing list, and after 27 years of always having a pica ruler on the desk or a table beside me, I can tell you that the most regular use I get out of that pica ruler is the first item (i.e. item #10) on this list. It is the perfect back scratcher! Not only can you zero in on an area with the sharp hook of the ruler, but you can also scrape across your back with the entire length of the ruler to scratch a maximum surface area at once. It can provide a relief that no other instrument could provide. I reach for it all the time for this purpose. Just make sure you get one that is made of metal and has a sharp edge. You don't want to cut yourself, but you do want an edge that can scrape.