The Grapefruit is Coming For Your Family

So for the last few weeks I've been taking a ridiculous number of pills.*

*Some backstory - NOT enjoyable ones. Turns out I had a bacterial infection in my stomach which needed antibiotics to kill it. Unfortunately, most antibiotics also kill me. Which means they have to give me low level alternative antibiotics in large quantities. So I've ended up having to take 18 pills a day for the last few weeks. Fun side effects - constant nausea, light-headedness, and the tendency to get winded standing up or crossing a room.  It's been awesome.

In that there have been many days when the most I'm physically capable of is laying on the couch watching TV and not enjoying a lovely cocktail*, I've pretty much spent the majority of September irritatingly sober, pukey, and watching television**

* It turns out that alcohol magnifies the whole 'nausea' thing by about 5000%. Not a mistake you make more than once.

** Plus side - I finally got around to checking out Bob's Burgers and Archer***. 

*** Seriously, how had I missed Archer?

Now, it turns out that if you're watching a lot of TV and are sober (which I do not recommend) you become irritatingly aware of the commercials. And of course, in that meds were the cause of my current state, I became even more aware of the commercials for dodgy medications.

You know the ones - Handsome and/or lovely young commercial actor standing on a windswept beach and unable to poop/sustain an erection. You know, like you do. Finally the name of some new miracle cure for whatever the problem is is referenced at which point the handsome/lovely actor in question begins running through a field of flowers (presumably on their way to pop a squat or hold a trapper keeper awkwardly in front of their bulging trousers. This then leads to some soft lit nature shots while a voiceover lists the many horrible things that the medication will ALSO do to you*

*Why is anal leakage always on this list?  Is there any man-made pharmaceutical that does NOT immediately cause anal leakage? 

This then segues to some polite-but-firm legally mandated warnings about what not to do while taking the medication*

*And yet for some reason 'Don't wear white pants' never seems to be on this list.

The other night I was watching one of these, and the 'Don't do what Donny Don't Do Does' list began as usual - While using this product, don't drive, don't operate heavy machinery, don't vote in any national elections, etc., etc..  Then in the middle of this list they threw in, 'Don't eat grapefruit.'

Now, is it just me, or is that a curiously specific instruction?  Not citrus, specifically grapefruit.

I choose to believe that someone writing copy for that ad had been hanging out with a buddy who sold grapefruit the night before who had completely pissed him off somehow. (Perhaps he ate the last potato skin, who can say with fruit-sellers). Still stewing over the argument, he throws the grapefruit thing into the 'Don't' list with a profound sense of 'THAT'll show him.'

In my mind, that's how the world of advertising works.

Dig-Duggar

For those too young to remember, back in the 1980s there was a videogame called...

Wait, hold that thought.  Let's clarify.

Back in the 1980s, videogames were something that you had to actually leave your house to play.

I know.  Take a minute with that. It's a bit of a culture shock.  Breathe through it.  Better?  OK.

So.  In the day, videogames all lived in a store space in the local mall called an 'Arcade'. These videogames were large stand up contraptions roughly the size and shape of a telephone booth...

Dammit...

OK, roughly the size and shape of one of those streetside things you can buy newspapers out o...

Oh for crap sake.

Um... Photo booths?  Do we still have photo booths? No? What about voting booths...?  We still do that, right...?

OK.  They were about the size and shape of a voting booth*

*People of Florida, you're just going to have to google it.

Anyway, an arcade was a darkish room full of neon signs and these large stand up videogame machines that you had to put quarters into to play.  They were about six hundred times larger than a video game station you might see today, only played one game each, and almost never involved scoring points for raping prostitutes. Also there was Skeeball.  Which was awesome.

One game that we particularly awesome was called Dig-Dug. In it you were a pudgy little guy relentlessly digging himself further and further down while trying to avoid attention from the other people around you.  If one came to close you had a special tube you stuck in them and pumped until they exploded.

Which brings me of course to Josh Duggar

To establish my cred on this issue up front, I was WAY ahead of the curve on the whole 'Hating the Duggars' thing.  I've despised them from back when their show was called Two Kids and We're Planning on Having a Couple Baseball Teams' Worth More Because We're Too Stupid to Understand Birth Control. They represent everything wrong in modern culture with their smug hypocritical stupidity, simple expecting to be handed everything they could ever want simply by shouting louder and louder how Jesus only loves people like them because apparently the fundamentalist bunch just eats that shit up. They contribute absolutely nothing to the world except bigotry, hypocrisy and a steady workforce for Matt Staver's secret camp for manufacturing knock off wallets for export

Whew.  As I said.  I despise the Duggars and everything they stand for.

So, Josh Duggar then.  Assuming that you live in a yurt, let me bring you up to speed.  After spending many, many years on TV telling us all how Jesus hand carved their family out of the purest ivory and they are always perfect, it came to light that they had to add the caveat 'Except that time we totally let our oldest son repeatedly molest four of his younger sisters without ever facing any consequences'

According to their press release, they found out about it, told Jesus about it, and Jesus looked back at them and said, 'Aw, you guys.  I could never stay mad at you. We're totally good.  You tell him I said go ahead and molest away.'

Now this story has more or less faded by this point, except for one unfortunate thing. The Ashley Madison website (That's the one that exists solely to provide people a forum to cheat on their spouses) got hacked, and it turned out that our boy Josh had a couple of accounts with them. Now, there's no actual evidence that he hooked up with anybody, but he did prepay for the 'Guaranteed Affair within three months package'* and did not request a refund

*A real thing btw

 So, that's Women and Children crossed off of Josh's 'Things I'd like to have sex with' list. At this point I'm enthusiastically looking forward to the almost inevitable announcement that he's been caught having anonymous gay sex in a public restroom. Not because I enjoy watching bad things happen to the Duggars (although I certainly do!) but because he's this close to pulling off the hat trick and it would be a shame if he didn't make it.

It's the same reason we rooted for American Pharoah at Belmont.

In Retrospect, I Kind of Blame the People of the Mountain

So many years ago, back in the halcyon age before the Internet (and computers for that matter...) I had a grade school teacher who was a bit of a hippie. 

Regularly at school assemblies he would bring his guitar and we would all sing songs along the line of 'If I Had a Hammer', and 'Leaving on a Jet Plane', with the lyrics written on huge sheets of white paper in the front of the school gymnasium. 

One of Mr. Case (for that was his name)'s standards was 'One Tin Soldier'. For those unfamiliar with the song in question, you can review it here*

*As presented in The Legend of Billy Jack**

**I'm not going to even attempt to explain The Legend of Billy Jack

Now, the song is a pretty straightforward 70s peace anthem swaddled in vaguely Tolkien-esque middle-ages village imagery*

*If you could fit the entire 70s into a giant stock pot and let it boil for a very long time, it would eventually reduce to something not unlike the song 'One Tin Soldier'

So the basic story is this - We have the Mountain people who supposedly have a 'treasure'. We also have the Valley people who live next door and would very much like to swing by and borrow a cup of treasure. The Valley people send a polite note requesting the treasure, the mountain people send a deliberately vague note back, and so the valley people slaughter the mountain people and discover that the treasure is, in actual point of fact, the words 'Peace on Earth', which are for some reason know only to the mountain people hidden under a rock.

Now, as a kid I readily accepted that this was a story about bad valley people who killed their neighbors, but looking back on it now I can't help but think that the Mountain people have to take at least some of the blame for the whole situation. I mean, I don't want to blame the victim here, but let's take a look at how easily the whole situation could have been cleared up by having the following simple conversation-

VALLEY PEOPLE

 Hey, we've heard you have a bunch of treasure. 

The 411 is that it's tons of gold. We'd like you to give it to us.

 FYI, we're totes willing to kill for it.

MOUNTAIN PEOPLE

I'm sorry, what?  We couldn't hear you over our enormous beards

VALLEY PEOPLE

Your tons of golden treasure.  Please give it to us. 

MOUNTAIN PEOPLE

Oh... I totally see where the miscommunication here is.  

We don't actually have literal treasure like gold or silver or anything like that.  

When we say treasure we're talking about a 

metaphoric representation of peaceful coexistence.  

VALLEY PEOPLE

You what now?

MOUNTAIN PEOPLE

 We wrote the words 'Peace on Earth' under a rock. See?  Look, you can totally see it.

VALLEY PEOPLE

Why would you even do that?

MOUNTAIN PEOPLE

It's ... like.. a metaphor.

VALLEY PEOPLE

Why did you put it under a rock?

MOUNTAIN PEOPLE

Because shut up, that's why.

VILLAGE PEOPLE

Why are we even a part of this conversation?

VALLEY PEOPLE

Oh CHRIST, not them again.  Screw this, we're going home.

See?  Totally cleared the situation up and nobody had to get slaughtered even a little bit.

Honestly, it's like the Mountain People wanted to get wiped out.

#SadHulk

A bit of backstory -

For the last couple of months I've had an ongoing issue of some kind going on in my guts.  I'm still not sure what's going on exactly, but my current theory is that an alien is going to erupt from my sternum at any moment.

As part of the ongoing quest to figure out what exactly is going on I've been going through a series of medical tests. First the simple stuff - bloodwork, etc. That showed nothing wrong. Then the 'poo samples' saga (which has already had far too much discussion here)  This also came back and showed nothing wrong. Then we progressed to the ultrasound to check organ function - this was notable for including the following exchange-

ME:

I suppose this is where most people make the obvious joke 

about finding out if it's a boy or a girl.

VERY NICE ULTRASOUND TECH LADY: 

(In a voice of unspeakable weariness) 

... yes.

Once the ultrasound came back showing nothing wrong we moved on to something called a radioactive injection test*.

*Because apparently the name 'Fiendish Death Ray Test was already taken, but they still wanted to sound really sinister.

As tests go it was fairly non-threatening (despite the ominous name). The basic upshot of it is that they put an IV in your arm and fill your veins with radioactive goo. Then they mount you on an enormous metal sandwich board  and scan your organs for traces of radiation. The practical upshot of this is that you can watch on the conveniently placed monitor as your liver, gall bladder and small intestine all light up in dayglow colors as radioactive goo gets processed through them.

Now the answer to the two obvious questions -

Yes, the test came back showing nothing wrong, 

and

No, I do not appear to have been turned into the Incredible Hulk

I confess to being disappointed on both counts.

While I had to wait to hear back from the clinic for the first answer, I ascertained the second on my own through the simple expediency of recruiting a colleague at work to attempt to make me mad and see if it caused me to transform into a giant green* rage monster**

*possibly grey 

** Arguably not the world's most controlled experiment...

One slight procedural hitch - I don't really get angry very often, which caused a little difficulty. So in practice the experiment ran more like -

HELPFUL COLLEAGUE:

Did you hear?  You're not going to be allowed to have a teacup pig at work in the new offices

ME:

Oooooh.  <Sad Noise>

HELPFUL COLLEAGUE:

No, you're not supposed to get sad.  You're supposed to get angry!

ME:

But that's really sad news!

HC:

If you don't get angry how are you going to turn into the Hulk?

ME:

Well... maybe some Hulks aren't triggered by rage.  Maybe some Hulks are triggered by other emotions.  Maybe I'm Sad Hulk.

HC:

Sad Hulk would be Awesome! Sad Hulk would say things like "Sad Hulk wrote you poem. You probably won't like."

ME:

"Sad Hulk Eat whole tub of ice cream.  No one ever love anyway..."

HC:

"Sad Hulk lay down until DIE."





Please begin submitting your own quotes from Sad Hulk with the hashtag #SadHulk.  My debilitating stomach pain will totally be worth it if this ends up on the Nerdist.

The Subtleties of Poo Transfer

A few years back now I was diagnosed with an H. Pylori infection. For those fortunate enough not to be familiar with the microscopic bastards in question, they're bacteria that have found a way to live in stomach acid. As tiny parasites, alone they're irrelevant, but when they gather in large numbers they can cause discomfort and nausea. Much like the Tea Party.

Typically this is a simple infection to clear up with a shout of antibiotics.  Unfortunately, two things prohibit this for me -

1: I'm allergic to pretty much all of the effective antibiotics

2: I'd just as soon not have my throat swell shut and die.

I ended up having to spend three weeks taking seventeen lesser antibiotics every single friggin' day - by the end of which I was actively hoping to be killed by falling airplane waste.

So as you might imagine, I was less than thrilled to discover recently that chronic stomach issues might be a recurrence of the same thing.*

*The other options are Ulcer, Gall Bladder failure, and imminent Alien protrusion.  It's a crap shoot at this point.

First they sent me in for an ultrasound, which appears to have eliminated both gall bladder and Alien (although not definitively). To determine the presence of H. Pylori required some labwork. Which meant delivering unto them a sample.  Of poo.

Friends, there is no casual way to hand a stranger a small vile of your own poo.

It simply cannot be done.

Even amongst the closet of friends such an exchange can be difficult. For example, apparently such a thing is not an appropriate Christmas gift...

Here then, because I am super helpful, are some suggestions for making your poo handoff come out just a little more smoothly.

-The 'Drop and Run'.
A variation of 'Look, what's that on fire over there', followed by dropping your kids off at the pool and running for dear life - the most crucial part of successfully achieving this one is to have your sample clearly labelled.  Otherwise you don't get any credit for it and end up having to do the whole thing overt again.

-The 'High Five'
What clinic receptionist wouldn't be pleasantly surprised to get a perky morning High Five?  Sure, He (or she) might be a little disconcerted by discovering a sample of fecal matter left in their hand afterwards, but I bet they'd be so amused by the whole thing that they'd totally just laugh it off. 

For bonus points you could try the 'Up High. Down Low. Straight Through. Here's Poo'

-The 'Really Cool Bartender'
This requires that the receptionist has a really log (and relatively slick) counter and that they are sitting at one end of it.  Careful not to overshoot, or you'll again have to start over. The bonus part however is that if you pull it off correctly you never have to get particularly close to them, and how often can you say that about someone holding your feces?

-The 'Owning It'
 Walk in and calmly announce in a loud and confident voice, 'I am here to drop off a sample of my own feces. Which I have personally collected within the requested time frame and secured in the provided container. Take my feces, and do what tests you will. For I am comfortable with this, our interaction.'

That look she will give you?  That look is respect.


You're Welcome.

Suicide - 1 A.D.

I should stress at the outset - This is in no way a cry for help, I'm not particularly depressed*, and there's absolutely no reason for anyone to see this column as a cause for concern.  No, you may not have my record collection.  Just wanted to make that perfectly clear before we begin.

*Although I would not turn down a cookie. 

Almost exactly a year ago a good friend of mine killed himself.

It still feels weird typing that, although the whole thing has reached that curious level of simultaneously feeling like it only happened a day or so ago and no longer being able to remember a time before it happened.

I don't think, generally speaking, that any of our mutual friends were aware that we were particularly close. Most of our conversation was done through texting since we were rarely in the same place at the same time. That said, we chatted via text most days.  About a lot of serious stuff. At the time he died he probably knew more personal information about me than anyone else on the planet. I like to think that I'd had the same level of confidence from him, but I couldn't say for sure.

Something strange happened after he died. While he was alive I never gave a thought as to whether or not anyone else knew that we were as good of friends as we were. It just never crossed my mind. After he shot himself I realized I was developing a strange resentment of how no one knew. Our friendship had always been in Stealth Mode, and now that it was gone I became obsessed with the fact that no one had known about it. I had a recurring urge to try to force the fact into any conversation I could.  (I think I managed to resist the urge most of the time, although probably not as well as I'd like to tell myself.)

Without sugar-coating it, I had a strong drive to try to make his death about me.*

*I'm making a concerted effort to not delete that sentence, as it's not a comfortable thing to admit to myself. I suspect that it's probably a pretty normal response to the situation, psychologically speaking. Normally I would ask my friend Carol, who's a trained psychologist. Or psychiatrist. Now I think about it I'm not actually sure which. I'd like to be able to ask her that as well. Unfortunately, that's not possible.

Carol died of her cancer a few days ago.

As I posted to my Facebook wall (how did we do public grief before the internet? Does anyone even remember?) I had a similar feeling.  I posted something along the lines of 'My friend has passed away from cancer', and moments after posting it I thought to myself, 'What are you doing?  You're Facebook friends with her husband.  He'll see that.  This is his loss, don't try to make it about you.'

I think at the end of the day that the problem is just that we as a culture (generally) and I as a person (specifically) just don't handle death particularly well.  We lack the vocabulary to talk about it openly, and so it turns into a non stop game of 'Is it OK for me to be feeling this about that.'  Meanwhile, Reality TV has spawned an entire sub-culture of people who do take every situation and make it entirely about themselves, and for god sake we don't want to be like them.

So what is that? What do we do about it? Why can't we just say, 'Dave was my friend. Carol was my friend. And it super sucks for me that they're gone.'  Sure, It also sucks for other people. It sucks more for some other people. That doesn't make it suck less for me.

Maybe at the end of the day, all we really want is some sort of affirmation that even though our friend is gone, our friendship with them still mattered. Regardless of who did or didn't know about it at the time.

And here's a cute video of penguins who love each other having adventures, because Carol would have liked it and I could use such a thing right now.

Too Hot for Science Friday

I was listening to public radio on my drive in to work the other day (Pretentious Dog Alert) and happened to catch a regular feature they do called 'Science Friday'*

*Because it's on Fridays.  And about science.  It's hosted by Ira Flatow, who once upon a time hosted the TV show Newton's Apple. This is mostly notable because it was given a shout out on an episode of Archer, which means that Ira is officially cooler than you or me.

There were a few stories being discussed on this particular day.  The first of them was a little piece about medical problems in the Koala population in Australia.  Specifically; research has determined that over 50% of the Koalas in Australia have Chlamydia.

Feel free to take a moment at this point to say to yourself, 'What the HELL is going on in Australia??'

Now, Ira went on the specify that this is not the same strain of Chlamydia that humans are capable of getting, but it does still reinforce the need to discuss past partners every time you want to get intimate with a koala.  It also explains the Australian folk saying, 'Hey, get your whore Koala off of my lawn!'

Tomorrow:  Science Friday Continues