My maternal grandpa was a carpenter, a quiet guy who was addicted to dog racing.

When he was in his mid 70s, he left my grandma in Loveland, Colorado, and spent a winter in Florida working on a farm where they raised greyhounds.

There he learned they train the dogs in large fenced areas with live rabbits and that a rabbit will slow down just a tiny bit before it darts one direction or the other. In a race situation the dogs chase a mechanical bunny mounted to the rail around an oval track.

Grandpa discovered that dog races could be fixed if the person operating the mechanical rabbit would slow it just enough so the lead dog would break stride thinking the rabbit was going to change directions and the next dog would be in the lead. A good operator could shuffle the pack so that any dog chosen could win. This pretty much soured him on dog racing.

I saw him only during family holidays, but I most remember him from his method of filling conversational voids at the table. When most of the niceties about weather and cousin Donita’s divorce were exhausted, my grandpa would lean back in his chair and ask, “Why do they call shoes shoes?” — at which point some semi-educated member of the family would say that the word “shoe” comes from the German word “shuh.” His rejoinder was, “Why do the Germans call shuhs shuhs?”

I bring him into our column this month because it is December and we are entering the holiday season. There will be gatherings, even during these plague-ridden times, of family and friends when the dinner conversation stalls or heads off into contentious issues and the reader may need a diversionary tactic to keep family meltdown at bay.

You are welcome to try Grandpa’s shoe question, but as backup topics I have gathered the following list of factoids that might divert real arguments into Google sessions. Stay safe out there.

There are 333 squares on a toilet paper roll.

Alfred Hitchcock didn’t have a belly button.

The toothbrush was invented in 1498.

If coloring were not added to Coca-Cola, it would be green.

Two-thirds of the world’s eggplant is grown in New Jersey.

The king of hearts is the only king without a mustache in a standard deck of cards.

One pound of fat represents 4,000 calories.

Rubber bands last longer when refrigerated.

Winston Churchill was born in a ladies’ room during a dance.

The Eiffel Tower has 2,500,000 rivets in it.

The average age of a major league baseball is five to seven pitches.

In 2006, 18 Americans fractured their skulls while vomiting in a toilet.

The longest recorded flight of a domestic chicken is 13 seconds.

A metal coat hanger is 44 inches long when straightened.

French toast isn’t French. It was invented by Joseph French in New York.

A whale’s penis is called a dork.

The average human creates 25,000 quarts of saliva in a lifetime.

Every minute six people turn 17 years old in the United States.

The average house fly lives a month.

A bowling pin needs to tilt 7.5 degrees to fall.

Americans eat 18 acres of pizza per day.

Dolphins sleep with one eye open.

The inventor of the Pringles can is buried in one.

Canada eats more macaroni and cheese than any other country.

Selfies cause more deaths than shark attacks.

Porcupines float.

The Philippines consists of more than 7,000 islands.

It takes a drop of water 90 days to travel the entire Mississippi River.

A dime has 118 ridges around its edge.

Marrying a cousin is legal in 26 states.

Every human spent about half an hour as a single cell.

Non-dairy creamer is flammable.

Hostess can make 55,000 Twinkies per hour.