Do you remember that great line in the song from South Pacific, "I'm as corny as Kansas in August..."?  What a word picture!  If you've driven over the Kansas flatlands, you know that's pretty corny.

Corn is an incredible thing.  We use it in so many ways that is it virtually impossible for you to avoid repeated encounters with corn in your average day.  For instance, roughly a fourth of all the products in the average grocery store have corn or a corn by-product in them (and the average grocery store has between 10,000 and 30,000 products!)

You may "starch" a shirt not knowing you're using corn.  In our business, we use a different product called sizing, and it makes a garment look and feel like new again.  Our sizing does some other good things, too, that you'll be glad to hear about.  So, learn a bit about sizing, and some of the incredible facts about corn that will have your dinner guests dropping their teeth when you reel them off.  That's half the fun of knowledge, isn't it?  Flaunt it!

See you soon,
Jim Nixon,
The Cleaners

Did you know...

• An ear of corn has an average of 800 kernels in 16 rows.
• A pound of corn is approximately 1300 kernels.
• An acre of corn that produces 100 bushels results in roughly 7,280,000 kernels.

(Don't let anybody catch you counting the kernels in that can of corn, though, or you'll have a lot of explaining to do.)

 Not-So-Corny Coupon

Corn kernels are like pennies... you need a lot of them to have anything worth bothering with, right?  Well, here's something you can do for a penny -- Have two regular items cleaned and we'll clean a shirt or blouse for just one penny.  Who says they aren't worth anything any more?  (Include the first page of this e-mail with your order.  Offer expires August 23, 2003.  Cannot be combined with other offers.)

How clothing feels
make a difference!

There's something magical about shopping for clothes.  When you find the right outfit, you look forward to wearing it the first time because it looks great and it feels crisp and new.  What gives it that feeling -- that "hand", as we say in the industry?  Sizing.

Sizing has nothing to do with the dimensions of your garment.  It is a carefully formulated finish that is applied to fabric or garments to enhance the body and drape of the clothes.  Because it is a finish, over time it can be removed even by the most careful drycleaning or washing.  When that happens, your prized garment feels limp and no-longer new.

Most people can tell a garments that has been professionally drycleaned from one that is home cleaned because that like-new finish is back in place.  We've told you before that drycleaning includes a lot of chemistry knowledge, and sizing is part of that chemistry.

What else does sizing do?  In studies done by the International Fabricare Institute, it was noted that proper sizing will also make it easier to clean your garments because the stains don't penetrate the individual fibers.  They are also easier to return to like-new because the creases hold a good edge and wrinkles can't set in the garment as easily.

You really ARE corny!

When we use sizing in our cleaning process, it is a formula that is primarily polystyrene (like those coffee cups everyone hates) which is why the stains are easier to remove afterward and the creases are sharper.  When we clean a garment, some of that sizing is removed, but we replace it in the cleaning process.  At home, you may use a spray starch on shirts or table linens if you iron them.  Your starch is actually made from corn!  (Yes, the same corn starch you use in gravy, but much finer and put into an aerosol.)  Because it comes from an organic product, the starch is subject to oxidization and it may yellow over time, so watch for that.

Corn is a member of the grass family -- really BIG grass.  The by-products of corn processing are in so many items that its impossible to list them all here.  Some of the more interesting:

• Tires.  Manufacturers have long used corn starch dusted on the molds that are used to make tires so that the rubber does not stick to them.  Now, however, they are experimenting with micro-droplets of corn starch actually included in the recipe for the tires.  It is said to lower rolling resistance, and that means better fuel economy and less noise.
•  Food.  Whether you like corn or not, you'd think that a lot of it is eaten in America.  You'd be wrong.  Less than 2% of the total corn crop is consumed as kernel corn or on the cob.  However, we collectively consume 120 million bushels that are part of processed foods.
•  Animal feed.  On the other hand, 58% of the crop goes to animal feed each year -- cattle, hogs, poultry, catfish.
•  Sweetener.  Corn syrup is by far the most popular sweetener of things like soda pop.  The reason: one bushel of corn can generate enough corn syrup to sweeten 400 cans of soda.  It also shows up in almost every processed food that includes a sweetener.  Corn starch is also used to add bulk to many foods.  You'll find corn hidden in baby food, beer and whiskey, candies, chewing gum, ketchup and mustard, peanut butter and jelly, potato chips, licorice and toothpaste, to name just a few.
•  Cosmetics.  Someone figured out that if you grind up corn cobs, you get a powder that is fairly dust-free and very absorbent.  This substance is used as a "carrier" for pesticides, vitamins, hand soaps and cosmetics.
•  Pharmaceuticals.  If you've been hospitalized and given an IV, chances are you got some corn syrup thrown into the bargain.  Aspirin is very crumbly, so each tablet is coated with a thin film of corn by-product.  It easily dissolves in water -- as you've found out if you dropped your aspirin in a damp sink.  Corn by-products also make great growing mediums for antibiotics.  Over 85 antibiotics are produced using corn.
•  Other uses -- adhesives, paper products (corn starch improves printability on paper), bedding and carpets, ropes and cord.  Corn-based polyactic acid is replacing other ingredients in plastics and textiles, even being blended with cotton, wool and silk.

So, the next time you find yourself singing along with Rogers and Hammerstein's "I'm in Love with a Wonderful Guy", you can sing the line about being as corny as Kansas in August with more gusto -- because you really are!