Lancaster, IN — Dr. Lars Andersen announced that the 17-year study on clothing and beauty which he has conducted amongst the rural population of the surrounding counties has come to several conclusions, some more surprising than others.
“I didn’t think that burlap was going to be the overwhelming choice when we began this study. I mean, we weren’t supposed to have any preconceptions, but that’s difficult when one has been living amidst such simple people for as many decades as I have,” said Andersen. The good doctor, with degrees from both Harvard and Stanford, has lived among the natives since the late 1980s, spending several years acclimatizing to the people and culture, and earning the trust of the community.
“At first we didn’t know what to make of him,” said Mabel Orbison. Mabel owns and operates the Diner on Main Street in Lancaster. “He’d come in, order an egg-white omelette and coffee and just sit there for half a day. Then, we figured out that he was one of those scientist types who gets paid to study people.”
Dr. Andersen noted that when he finally began his study, he figured that it wouldn’t take more than a few years, four or five at the most, but that he kept getting getting such strange data that he determined he had to get more to make certain he wasn’t recording anomalies.
In short, Anderson determined, through direct observation (as well as follow-up interviews) that men found women who wore burlap more attractive than women who wore something else, like nylon, rayon, polyester, or one of the other not-so-natural fabrics. He noted that his backers had specified that he wasn’t to consider any natural fabric other than burlap in his research, so he spent a fair amount of time removing wool, silk, linen and cotton from his dataset.
“I never realized that there was so much burlap in use anymore,” Anderson said. “Especially around Sadie Hawkins Day. Why, just about everyone of those young ladies was wearing some. And you should see how the men would fight over them. I must say, as a researcher, it was quite something to behold.”
At press time, Anderson noted that DuPont had pulled his funding, so he wasn’t likely to spend any more time on the data. When asked about plans, Anderson said that he was headed out to California to determine if the high from commercial marijuana was better or worse than the one from black market marijuana. “I know Governor Newsom has his ideas about this one, since he’s funding it, but I’ll have to go where the data takes me.”