Attack of the Brain Cloud...

...or the Revenge of Joe and the Volcano. 

The other day my wife and I were discussing (i.e., arguing; hey, it's our hobby!) about the different ways we handle sleeplessness.

I told her, "when you don't sleep well, you thrive on it."

She disagreed. "Hardly! I don't 'thrive'. I make do and manage."

"Still seems like thriving to me," I muttered. "But when I can't sleep, it's like...a brain cloud lowers down on me."

"First of all, there's no such thing as a 'brain cloud,'" she said. 

"Yes, there is," I insisted. "I might've made it up, but it's very, very real."

"It came from a movie," she said authoritatively.

Humph. Anyone who knows me knows that I have a head jam-packed with worthless and pointless knowledge of movies (which when you come right down to it, probably wouldn't make me a very important and necessary component in the survivor camps during our impending zombie apocalypse.).

But...but...my wife stumped me on this one. "I know of no such movie," I statedtriumphantly. "What movie, pray tell, do you speak of?"

Immediately, she whips out, "Joe and the Volcano."

Silence. Blink. Crickets. More silence. Blinkety-blinky-blink.

"JOE AND THE VOLCANO?" I roar. "Who remembers friggin' Joe and the Volcano? I mean, I kinda think I've seen it, but don't remember anything about it except that it was painfully unfunny and terrible."

"Yes, it was. But that's where 'brain cloud' came from."

Wow. She stymied the Movie Master. This is made more incredible by the fact that at times my wife can't remember the movie we watched last weekend, let alone some obscure 34-year-old bomb  that NO ONE remembers like Joe and the Volcano.

But sure enough, according to Ms. Google, my wife was right (dammit! Gettin' kinda old!). Apparently, Tom Hanks character was diagnosed with an incurable deadly disease known as "brain cloud" which will kill him in several months.

However, Wiktionary (a very, very, VERY credible source, of course) refers to "Brain Cloud" as a very real ailment that causes "the temporary inability to think properly." Other scientists and psychologists refer to it as a nickname for the clouding of consciousness. There's a LOT more boring stuff about this insidious disease that I won't bother you with, but the most stunning aspect of it all is finally--FINALLY!--Joe and the Volcano will be remembered as something other than a terrible bomb and actually contributed to the field of science.

Speaking of really dumb and stupid things, look no further than my Zach and Zora comedy mystery series. If imbecilic humor and outrageous situations and decidedly impolitically correct comedy and  cool murder mysteries are your bag, have a read! Start with Bad Day in a Banana Hammock and spiral on downwards from there! Plus! A brand spankin' new book in the series coming to you some time this century!

If Only I Had a Third Eyelid

Last week there was a huge food mishap in our house. No, for once it wasn't my doing. Our senior dog happened to be lollygagging around our largest dog while she was eating. Things didn't go well. She attacked the elderly pup (shades of when a white trash drunk young woman tried to beat me up in a Holiday Inn!). By the time I broke it up, the damage had been done.

Mr. Loomis had a chest wound, but worse, his eye was nearly completely red.  Being a responsible adult and pet owner, I did the only mature, responsible thing that was needed: I panicked.

I'd never seen a dog's eye wound like that before. I called our doggy thousand dollar ophthalmologist (yes, Virginia, there IS such a thing), but she was booked solid. I called our regular vet, but they were full up as well.

Then I did the next responsible thing and called my out-of-town wife. "Oh my God, dear, there's blood everywhere! Literally gushing from his eye!"

Silence. Then, "Okay, how bad is it, really?"

"Um, his eye's mostly red."

"He needs to be seen," she said.

So, I knew what I had to do. A dreaded trip to the million dollar doggy E.R. (again, Virginia, duh, they exist. What rock have you been hiding under?), where patience and Big Bills are rarely rewarded.

The assistant who checked me in said, "Wait...what's your wife's name?"

I told her.

"I KNOW Mr. Loomis," she shouted exuberantly. "I used to work at your thousand dollar doggy ophthalmologist. Mr. Loomis was our patient!"

It's a small doggy world, it turns out. Too bad the doggy bills aren't so small.

Anyway, she led me back to the room and I had hoped that her goodwill with Mr. Loomis would speed things up a bit. But Mr. Loomis and I waited. And waited. And waited. Waited until my phone died. Then I left.

The next morning I was able to see the thousand dollar doggy ophthalmologist. 

She said, "The good news is it looks like his third eyelid is doing its job."

"Wait...what?" I looked carefully into Mr. Loomis' blood-filled eye. "Is...is...my dog a...mutant? I've never even HEARD of a third eyelid!"

The doctor rolled her (presumably double-lidded) eyes and said, "We humans are the oddball. We're the only mammals that don't have a third eyelid."

Whoa! Freaky!

So I nodded and pretended I wasn't nearly as dumb as I actually am. But when we got home, I looked up the third eyelid via my assistant, Ms. Google.

"The third eyelid is located in the inner corner of the eye and sweeps across the eye in a horizontal direction when the eyeball retracts during a blink. This protects the eye, distributes tears, and helps maintain vision."

Where was I when this was being taught in school? (Oh, yeah, probably skipping class and smoking weed and hanging out in the parking lot. I can admit this now since both of my parents have passed away.)

But it got me thinking. So...do dogs actually have SIX eyelids? When don't they refer to them as the third and sixth eyelid?

And why can't humans have the third eyelid? It'd probably help with my perpetually weeping eyes. It could be, like, my superpower.

"There's no need to fear!" I'd shout triumphantly with chest out and hands on hips. "My special third eyelid will take out the evildoer!"

"Oh, thank you, Third Eyelid Man," an adoring, hot blonde bystander would say.

Speaking of nice dreams, well...I don't really write about "nice" dreams. Only bad dreams. Like in my horror-filled, dark humor-laced short story collection Twisted Tales From Tornado Alley. (Yes, Virginia, I know it's a terrible tie-in, but I needed some kinda segue to pimp my books. Now shut your pie-hole! Kids today!)

Hey, kids! Have you tried delicious mealworms? YUM!

In keeping with my rather dangerous (and at times unsavory), impulsive habit of eating before thinking, I picked up a chow mein noodle off the kitchen counter, ready to pop it into my mouth for a quick and easy snack. For once, however, my inner censor didn't malfunction and imprinted doubt in my mind.

"Hold on a second there, buster," it said (strangely in a 40's Bowery Boys Bronx accent),  "remember the other day when you picked up a chocolate chip off the counter?"

"Oh, yeah," I said out loud, chow mein noodle held firmly between my thumb and forefinger, while the dogs looked on questioningly, particularly since they couldn't see who I was talking to. "It turned out it wasn't a chocolate chip at all!"

"And," my inner censor pestered, "what happened next, wise guy?"

"Um...I discovered too late it was a dog food kernel. Yuck!"

"Well, well...don't you think that means maybe you oughta reconsoider that noodle?"

I stared at the crisp noodle. Sooo enticing. Sooo begging for me to eat it. Then I said, "hey, why would my wife be using chow mein noodles in a recipe? We typically never eat fried foods."

So close, yet so far, I lowered the crisp, delicious nugget from my mouth. My gaze wandered the kitchen.  

Messy countertops? Check. Container of dozens of dog pills, treats, doo-dads, gizmos? Check. Cans that neither my wife or I wanted to run down to the basement yet? Check. Bag of mealworms? Che--

Mealworms?

Hold on a minute... Mealworms? What the hell are mealworms?

I picked up the bag and had a look. Turned it over and over. A new kinda healthy cereal? No, it didn't have that kinda Kapow packaging. A healthy taste treat? Maybe, but why put the word "worm" into the title unless...unless...

Unless...

"AIEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEE!" 

Quickly--and quite dramatically--I hurled the offending mealworm toward the wall, hoping for a theatrical impact. Instead it just sort of fluttered to the floor, where to my horror, one of our dogs ate it.

When my wife got home, she had some 'splaining to do.

"What do you think they are?" she said. "Duh."

Well, that didn't really explain what they were, so I ventured online. (Now, some of you may be wondering why I didn't know what a "mealworm" was. It's quite simple: A} In my youth, I must've missed mealworm day at school; and B} I find worms to be of the most grotesque creatures on earth, hence why I don't go fishing and doubly-hence why I'm not all over the internet discovering the joys of wormdom. To quote my wife: "Duh.") But...being the intrepid reporter that I am--the things I do for you guys--I dug up what I could on "mealworms." (Yes, pun intended!)

Mealworms are the larval form of the yellow mealworm beatle, Tenebrio molitor, a species of darkling beetle. Which by no means makes them any less gross. Get this: the males emit a specific type of sexual pheromone. However, since there is so much inbreeding, the pheromone is diminished in the inbreeding hillbilly worms, and the females seek out the "outbred" ones. Good choice, ladies.

And hey! Mealworms are just adored by scientists and biologists because they're so honking big. Which in my book just makes them even squickier.

Here's where it gets really bad: people have been eating mealworms for centuries since they're purportedly high in protein. Some Asian countries sell them as street food. Why, you can even order up an insect burger with a high mealworm content! Yum. They can be processed into food products such as flour, which means that we've more than likely eaten mealworms in our lifetime. Finally, the European Union has approved them for human consumption. Thanks, guys!

"Wait," I said to my wife, "we're not gonna eat these, right? RIGHT?"

"Don't be stupid, dear," she said. "They're for the birds."

"Oooooooooooohhhhhhh," I replied. "But, then...why are they all over the kitchen?"

And from that point on, everywhere I looked, I found bags of mealworms. It rained mealworms. Like some sort of crazed Salvador Dali fever dream, I saw bags of mealworms on the kitchen counter, on top of the refrigerator, in the pantry. When I opened a cabinet, a bag fell down at my feet. Seeking solace in the garage, I found an industrial sized bag of mealworms. I had a nightmare where mealworms were re-hydrating and coming after me for revenge after I slurped down a massive bowl of them.

I think the European Union is trying to tell me something. Feeling kinda peckish now.

While I'm ranting about squirmy, gross creatures, you might find quite a few in my short story collection, Twisted Tales From Tornado Alley. Why, off the top of my head, I can think of giant spiders, a couple of Bigfoot ("Bigfeet?" "Bigfoots?"), sentient yet malevolent plants from elsewhere, monstrous trick 'r treaters, underground mutated murderous monsters, and more creatures, ghosts, and spooks than you shake a jack-o-lantern at. Ask for it by name, read it at night, and check under the bed. That's Twisted Tales From Tornado Alley by Whammo!

ASMR...Whaaaaaat?

Always late to the party, we just started watching "The White Lotus." In the second episode, the two heinous, emotionless, mean teen girls get stoned and then do some "ASMR." 

I asked my wife, "What's that?"

She said, "Look it up, it's so stupid."

SOLD!

So, off to consult with my writing assistant, Ms. Google, I went. The results will astound you! I say, I say, ASTOUND you! (Read that in a Foghorn Leghorn voice.)

Get this...ASMR stands for "autonomous sensory meridian response." What a load of hooey explaining nothing. 

Let's break it down. "Autonomous" means the feeling is in your body. Well...of course it's in your body, Dr. Numbskull! Where else would it be? In a rock, perhaps? Now, I hear some of you New Age Wiccans (I have a HUGE following amongst the Wiccans), taking me to task over that and saying, "But, Stuart, usually feelings are in your mind." Well, yes, but where's your "mind?" In your body, dammit!

"Sensory" explains that your senses perceive the feeling. Again...duh. Do we really need a word telling us this? Isn't this pretty much common sense?

Here's my favorite: "meridian." The word indicates the energy of feeling in your body. Ha ha haaaaaaa! Who do we have to blame for THIS word? I'm beginning to see a lot of repetition here.

Finally, we have "response," which shows how a feeling is a response to stimuli.

I say, ballyhoo! We've got four fancy-pants words, all pretty much redundantly describing "feelings from outside stimuli." We could've easily shortened the acronym to "SR," and not missed a beat.

Now comes the fun part. We've broken down the high-falutin' acronym, signifying nothing, so let's chat about the "process." It's a "calming sensation in response to outside stimuli, a pleasant tingling that starts at the top of the head and works it's way through the spine and limbs." Examples of stimuli cited are whispering or someone playing with your hair (damn...I missed that ASMR boat!).

Back in my day (before color TV), we used to call it "goose bumps."

Blame it on Jennifer Allen, an internet chat frequent flier, who coined the term in 2010. Taking it a step further, in 2015, the first scientific study on ASMR was conducted. Craig Richard, a physiology professor at Shenandoah University compiled a survey of 30,000 applicants. He then formed (are you ready for this?)...the "ASMR University," an online resource for everything ASMR. (I wonder what it would take to get my Masters at ASMR University? I already have a BS in Goose Bumpery.)

A phenomenon was created. (Or so the ubiquitous "they" say...I'm pretty sure even cavemen got goose bumps, but why quibble?) 

And it has exploded. New words and cutesy nonsense group names are trending. "ASMRtists" are making online videos, trying to induce feelings by making sounds over a microphone. "GibiASMR," "GentleWhispering ASMR," and "ASMR Darling" have gathered millions of followers on YouTube and other social media platforms. The highly scientific noises created include whispers, mouth noises (I wonder if burps are considered spine-tingly?), chewing (gross!), page turning (at the lightning speed my wife smacks through a book's pages, it's anything but relaxing), and "finger flutters," a so-called popular trigger. I don't know about you guys, but I don't even know what a finger flutter is, let alone know if it makes a sound.

The end results are calmness, sleepiness, and a state of relaxation.

Maybe I'll become an ASMRtist and make a video featuring the close-range sounds of fingernails across a chalk board, pieces of Styrofoam rubbed together,  Gilbert Gottfried, Rosanne Barr laughing, the Emergency Broadcast System alert, and ancient Uncle Bobby farting in his sleep. (It's gotta be more lucrative than churning out novels these days.) I wonder if the ASMRheads would make me an ASMRlegend?

Again, let's just call it goose bumps. Or I'll even modernize a bit (not too much, mind you) and go with the same results from yoga, mediation, or a massage.

I suppose even physiologists and psychologists gotta eat, though. But c'mon, guys! Enough is enough! Quit making up new titles for old junk simply because there's nothing else new to study just so you can obtain job security! I call quackery! Tomfoolery! Shenanigans! But really, I call it goose bumps.

Wait a minute... Do I hear... I think I do! The sound of one of the dogs piddling in the hallway! Ahhhh...the wondrous release of ASMR.

While we're talking about tomfoolery, there's a whole lot to be found in the adventures of Zach and Zora in my comical mystery series consisting of three (so far...I hope!) books starting with Bad Day in a Banana Hammock. If you like your mysteries full of dumb male strippers and angry pregnant sleuths and a myriad of other nutty characters, I recommend you drop in at the Bone-In-Beef dance club where Zach is about to take the stage (until he stumbles over yet another dead body, natch). Nine out of ten priests recommend the books available here!

 

The Return of the Human Lab Rat!

It's been some time since I filled you guys in on my amazingly unfathomable necrotic, skin-eating disease (which has thus far stumped my regular doctor, a dermatologist, several nurse practitioners, a legion of allergists, and my UPS guy {Hey, he had "Resting Therapy Face."}). And the ensuing human lab rat "study" that my allergist talked me into enrolling in for an experimental drug. (For all the horrific details, refer back to my older post. I'll wait right here until you're done reading.)

So, between being turned into a human pin cushion by sadistic nurse Carla (I kinda think she might have been blind whenever she tried to find my veins on a weekly basis), and then having two--count 'em, two!--mystery drug infusions, I still have my incomprehensible series of rashes. Oh sure, after the first infusion, I was miraculously healed up! Hallelujah! For about three weeks, then the itchiness and bumps came back with a vengeance. I suffered until the next infusion, hoping for the best. Again, it healed my skin, but this time for only a week.

Despondent, I asked the fresh-faced, fast-talking, hipster-slang-slinging, straight outta diapers research kid, Darren, what happens next.

Darren shrugs and says, "That's it. Now they want you to lay off any kind of drug that might help you for eight weeks."

"Eight weeks?!!? But...but...lookee!" I pulled my sleeve up to show him a gruesome run on my arm. "How am I gonna hold out for eight weeks?"

Another shrug, this time accompanied by a sly grin. "I know, right? It's kinda crazy."

Well, "crazy" doesn't supply relief. Don't get me wrong, the allergists never did cure my ailment, but at best, they were able to mask the symptoms with a succession of drugs (at least for a little while) by applying kindly Dr. Mr. Rogers' "throw-it-all-against-the-wall-and-see-what-sticks" methodology. Highly scientific. But, hey, I was desperate for relief. Even though a constant diet of Prednisone had turned me into the Michelin Tire Man.

I went home and suffered for another couple of weeks until I'd finally had enough and pulled the plug. I felt guilty, like a namby-pamby quitter, but to me it was unfathomable to sit and suffer for another six weeks for no particular reason. On the bright side, I wouldn't have Nurse Carla digging into my arm every week, spelunking for gold or whatever. Bonus!

So, I launched into my apology tour. Kindly Dr. Mr. Rogers was compassionate and kind (just like his late TV namesake), of course. But then he hit me with some insanely bad news.

"Unfortunately, your last blood test showed some truly weird anomalies in your blood. The drug development company would still like to monitor your blood work."

"Wait.. What?... WHAT?"

"Your blood work showed something really strange..." While he went on to explain it in boring scientific bla-bla-bla that I wouldn't understand anyway, images of a creepy, maniacally laughing, giant Nurse Carla coming at me with a bazooka sized hypodermic with a needle the size of a bayonet burned into my brain. 

"...and while I don't *think* (inserted finger quotes) you're dying, everyone thinks it'd be best if we continue to draw your blood for the next couple of months and--"

"Dying? Wait...what? What's wrong with my blood??? TELL ME DOC!"

"It's just a weird anomaly that we've never seen before, but there's no need to panic. They just want to make sure--"

"YOU'VE NEVER SEEN IT BEFORE??? WHAT HAVE I BECOME?"

"There, there..." I barely felt his lame pat of condolences on my back. "Nothing to worry about, it's just--"

"AND IS CARLA STILL GONNA DIG INTO MY VEINS???"

"Hang on just a second." Suddenly, kindly Dr. Mr. Rogers zips out of the room and zips back in with a very inquisitive young woman. She introduces herself as the new nurse practitioner and starts questioning me about...well, everything.

Kindly Dr. Mr. Rogers finally says, "Well, she just wanted to see you. At first, based on your blood work, she thought I'd made you up. That there was no way you could be alive."

"Wait...I SHOULDN'T BE ALIVE???"

"There's nothing to worry about. We just--"

"BUT THAT'S NOT WHAT YOU SAID! ALL I WANTED TO DO WAS QUIT THIS STUPID STUDY AND SUDDENLY I'M DYING!!! I'M NOT EXACTLY INSTILLED WITH CONFIDENCE NOW!!! I JUST--"

"There, there, there. Nothing to worry about. We just bla bla bla..."

This went on for a while. And I STILL didn't get what was up with my blood. However, after two further months of Nurse Carla jackhammering at my veins, the "anomaly had cleared up."

Now calmed and relieved, I had one more stop to make on my apology tour, this time to Darren, research whiz kid.

Grinning oddly, Darren mumbled something nearly indecipherable. Either that, or I pretended not to hear what he said, the horrors just too much to process.

"What? I'm sorry, I didn't get that."

"I can get you into another study," he repeated, still grinning like he knew a very special, fun Big Boy secret.

"Great GOOGLY-MOOGLY! You gotta be kidding me! Why in the WORLD would I ever consent to doing another one of these??? The last drug turned me into some kinda weird-blooded, 50's sci-fi monster and didn't even work! Then having Carla use me as a voodoo doll every week is just--"

"We'll pay you."

"Okay."

(Stay tuned for the further adventures of "Stuart, World's Worst Human Lab Rat!")

While we're chatting about colossally stupid decisions, my short story collection, Twisted Tales from Tornado Alley, is full of people making them. There's the cranky old woman who decides to battle three demonic children on Halloween. Hey, there's the young woman who decides to go underground--deep, deep, dark underground--in search of her missing brother. How about the man who believes his wife is cheating on him, so decides she must die? The list goes on and on. If nothing else, my protagonists should make you feel pretty good about even your worst life decisions! (If that's not a Must-Read plug, I don't know what is!) Check it out here.

 

My Deepest, Darkest (Probably Unfounded) Fear

Recently my daughter and I were discussing mortality. Okay, so it's not your typical father/daughter pow-wow, but our conversations rarely are. (Plus, in keeping with my highest standard of honest journalistic integrity, beers may have been involved. Perhaps lots of beers. But let's stop this digressing already!)

I said, "You know, funerals are awful. I loathe them."

"Dad, I don't think anyone loves 'em. It's not like people are doing cartwheels graveside," she replied.

"I know, but... I just hate how expensive they are. I mean, it's bad enough people are grieving their loved ones, but then to have some vulture of a funeral director glad hand you and talk you through his various kazillion dollar packages, and then sock you with a $15,000 bill during your time of grief is really kinda despicable. And why? To put your remains in the ground. It's all kinda ridiculous. I sure wouldn't want to leave you that kinda financial burden."

"That's why I want to donate my body to help people," she said. "But...I want my parts to go to as many people as possible. To help as many people as I can."

"Yeah, I've also thought about donating my body to science, but..." I paused, deep in morbid, half-drunk reflection. "It's also my deepest fear."

"What? What,what,what?"

"You know... I don't want to be on display naked in a glass cage and have some intern roll me out into a packed medical school classroom and have a professor point at me with his teaching stick and say, 'Class, this is a naked dead fat man. Don't turn into this!' And my eyes would be all bug-eyed and glassy and frozen open because it's my final thought before I kick the bucket!"

"Yeah, I don't really think that's how that would go down, but--"

"And then...and then...gasps and cries of revulsion would wave around the classroom and one student would even pass out!"

"Dad, I really, really don't think that--"

"Then they'd roll me back out until the next class. Nightmarish!"

"Hmm."

We discussed other ways to go. My wife had once suggested using her remains as compost or something to help plants grow. Which is an interesting idea even though I'm not sure I'd want to eat the resulting vegetable or whatever. Then she had once toyed with the notion of having her remains shot into space. Which is kinda cool, where no (wo)man has gone before and all that, but if a lousy burial is so expensive, Elon Musk is probably the only guy who can afford to blast his ashes into space.

I suppose cremation might be a relatively cheaper option, but I dunno. Having your body incinerated is still cringey to me, even though I'd have long left the building, so to speak.

Mummification might be kinda cool, but um...is it even legal? Furthermore, I've seen way too many mummy movies. It's bad enough I'm going to be on display, let alone slumping around in some pyramid wearing tattered cloths.

Cryonics might be kinda neat because I'd be frozen next to Walt Disney's head and Elvis Presley. But again, it's a rich dead man's game.

A tree burial is sorta nice. But really, once you're buried inside a tree, it's the same as being buried underground, but maybe a little scarier. And if you think a funeral director is outrageously overpricing his work, wait until an arborist gets involved!

There's aquamation where your body is "bathed" until it breaks down. I wonder how long that would take. Furthermore, who's gonna volunteer their bathtub? "I don't know," my daughter would say, "but Dad's been in the bathtub for about three months now and doesn't seem to be in any hurry to go down the drain."

Dissolution has gotta be the Mafia's favorite way to dispose of a body by dumping it into strong chemicals and turning it into soup. Expediency is key here, which is nice. But then again, I can't see Johnny Law looking kindly on someone melting down Grandpa in a barrel in the backyard.

I found about a dozen other ways to sail away, each more gruesome than the other. And expensive. No, I'm beginning to think my display case idea would be the cheapest and least burdensome for my loved ones. Unless, of course, they end up in that particular classroom.

Next week...puppies! (I kid, I kid...) And Happy Halloween, boo!

But I'm not kidding about the many creative ways of body disposal to be found at the Dandy Drop Inn where it's elevated to an art form. C'mon over and check in! Just make sure you'll be able to check out, if you know what I mean. That's the fun to be had in Dread and Breakfast! Make your vacation (and burial) plans now!

 

I Was a Human Lab Rat

As I lay on the doctor's table getting punctured, drained, and filled up with various mysterious fluids, I asked myself, how in the hell did I ever get talked into this? Good question!

I suppose I have no one to blame but myself. Along with some friendly strong-arming by my allergist, Dr. Mr. Rogers.

Hold on, hold on, let's back up a bit. You guys remember my writing about my mysterious skin rash? You don't? Here: Necrotic Skin-Eating Disease and Dr. End of the World. Go on. Refresh your memories over my trauma. I'll wait right here.

Okay, well, the crazy thing is after numerous medicines, shots, and wild guesses, friendly Dr. Mr. Rogers finally--FINALLY--happened upon some shots that cleared me up! After several years of suffering, I actually enjoyed two months of blissful non-itchiness! Huzzah! (I can just imagine the non-vaxxers having fits over what I went through. "Gimme muh freedumbs!")

And then--as life always seems to have a particularly ironically, unfunny way of doing--my life of comfort was swept out from under me.

"Hello," I said upon answering the phone.

"Stuart, it's me, Dr. Mr. Rogers. You know...from the neighborhood? Well, remember how I cured you? I want to uncure you."

Sooooo many crickets. "What?"

"I've been blessed with being granted a test study from big pharma. You'd be a perfect candidate to test this drug out on."

The crickets came out again. "Why on earth would I do that?"

"We'll pay you."

Ka-Ching! Visions of thousands and thousands of dollars danced greedily before me. "Okay!"

So dumb. So, soooooo very dumb.

When I returned to Dr. Mr. Rogers' office, he was clearly excited and nearly cartwheeled out of our brief visit. Then the techs all landed on me. They ripped off my shirt and threw me onto an extremely cold table in a freezing office and attached all sorts of gizmos to my chest.

"Wait...what're we doing?"

"Oh, not much. Just an EKG."

Like that explained it all.

After shivering my way through the first test, the nurse said, "Huh."

I said, "'Huh.' That doesn't sound encouraging."

"Well, it says here you're having a heart attack."

"Wait...what? Wait!"

"Hang on a minute. I'll be back."

So she leaves me having a heart attack in the freezing office. When she comes back, she's got another nurse. "Oh," says nurse number two, "this happens all the time."

"My heart attack happens all the time???"

"You're not having a heart attack. The machine is just...finnicky."

"That's good to know... I guess."

They run another test. Same results. They bring in the nurse practitioner. Wash, rinse, repeat. She says, "Wow. Do you have a heart problem history?"

"No! Not until now!"

She brings in Dr. Mr. Rogers who whacks the machine a couple of times. "There. That oughta do it."

By the time they finally got a reading that "they'd take," there were about  eight people in the small room, and me shivering with my shirt off wondering if I was having a heart attack.

Then it was off to meet the research kid, Darren! Darren's this fresh-faced, young, snappy-talking kid who tries to be cool by calling me "man" all the time. "So, man," he says, "what do you do?"

"You mean when I'm not being strapped to tables?"

"Yeah, man."

"I'm a writer."

Blank stare. No acknowledgement.

"Um...a novelist."

Blinkity-blink. Cone of silence.

"And a part-time realtor."

"Oh, wow, man! Real estate's such a sweet gig, man!"

Kids today. Anyway, it was time to confront Carla, the resident research nurse.

"I'm Carla," she says through her two-pack-a-day voice while trying to jab and stick me with a needle to draw blood. "I don't like your veins."

After immediately bruising up one arm, causing a world of pain, she decides to switch to the other arm with not much success. I'm watching the needle stick out of my arm with no blood forthcoming. "Hm. Let's go back to the other arm. I really don't like your veins."

"They don't like you much either!"

By the time Carla was finished, I looked like a green and brown patchwork monster.

Then I had to pee in a cup. Now, I don't know about you guys but this is one of my least favorite things to do in the world. I'm never able to urinate on demand. And, of course, the cup is always this tiny little thing. How in the world do you stop the flow without making a mess? It must take a very special talent to master peeing into a cup. Maybe I'd better practice.

Anyway, the actual drug administration hasn't even begun yet. Even more frightening, it's not a shot like I first thought, but an infusion. Which kinda terrifies me. Especially with Carla brandishing the I.V.

And the pay sucks.

But I'll keep you guys posted on my new adventures in being a human lab rat, you lucky readers.

Speaking of lucky readers, why not mosey on over to my Amazon book page and have a look-see. Something for everyone (probably not, but I've gotta try!)!

Necrotic Skin-Eating Disease

A couple years ago I started getting small, itchy red spots on my skin. Hmmm, I pondered, what new fresh Hell is this? Well, it did indeed turn hellish because my skin was soon blanketed with more and more dots that itched like insanity. I became Baloo the bear, rubbing my back against anything tall enough and standing (including people because I have no inner censor). Now it looks like my back and chest have been shotgunned.

So, I went to my regular doctor. Somewhat amused, she says, "try oatmeal baths."  The only good that did was it allowed me to multi-task by bathing and eating breakfast at the same time.

"Doc," I said, "It's not working!"

"Okay, let's do blood work," she says as I roll my eyes. "Blood work" is code for agony as the nurse drains me worse than Dracula, the fallback of all MD's.

The blood work came back. Nothing looked askew except for the obvious culprits: high cholesterol and blood pressure. But these wouldn't explain my necrotic skin-eating disease (okay, it's not truly a "necrotic skin-eating disease," but that's how I like to describe it because A) it appeals to my inner Drama Queen; and B) it drives my long-suffering, highly scientific-minded wife nuts).

"Well," says Doc MD, "how about you go see a dermatologist?"

Several days later, I found myself sitting in a lobby surrounded by acne-ridden teenagers. As the biggest "kid" in there, it reminded me of when my mom kept taking me to the "baby doctor" as I grew older. The extremely young (hardly older than the lobby teens), kinda cute (hard to tell with masks these days) nurse practitioner took me back and grilled me. Bored to the point of catatonia, sparks of life suddenly flickered in her eyes.

"Okay, show me the rash!" she shouted. "I like to see rashes! I want to see rashes!"

Hesitant at this sudden weird personality transplant (and because I was ashamed of my newly acquired "Covid curves"), I whipped off my shirt.

"Hmmm," she said, "isn't that interesting?"

"What? What, what, what? What's so interesting? Am I dying?"

She ignored that last question, because, well you know, liability. But she just shook her head and kept muttering "Isn't THAT interesting?" like she'd just discovered our next Pandemic (and maybe she had; looks like I'm Patient Zero).

"Well, I don't mind being interesting," I said, "but how do we get rid of this?"

I saw her every other week for a while as she kept trying out miracle cures. When they continued to fail, she'd totally switch gears every time. 

"Okay," she said, "I think you have Scabies."

"What??? Scabies? How in the hell could I get Scabies? I'm too young to have Scabies! And clean! And..." I continued ranting for a while, mainly because I didn't want to get branded with the big (dotted) Scarlet "S" of Scabies. And, frankly, I didn't buy it for a minute.

So, that treatment was fun. I had to smear this toxic junk all over my body, neck on down to my toes, and live with it for 24 hours.

Hey, whaddaya know, it didn't work! Next week, dejectedly, the NP said, "Hmmm, looks like you don't have Scabies." (Well, no kidding.)

Next, she pumped me full of steroids. For a few blissful days, I was itch-free! But it came with a major caveat: it wasn't permanent. And, alas, it wasn't.

She then proceeded to take pictures of my body to show her mentor/guru (and undoubtedly giggle about it over lunch). Later she called me and said, "we think it's a reaction to the sun."

I knew that was absolute hokum. I pretty much haven't left the house since Covid reared its ugly head. I told her as such and she said that that's how my condition represents. "Just to be on the safe side," she said, "I want to do more blood work."

Back to Nurse Wretched's Torture Lab! (This time someone forgot to run one test, so I had to go back a third time).

The results netted nothing. This farce continued on for a couple of months until I finally asked if I should go see an allergist.

"Hmmm, that's an interesting idea," she said.

Picture Mr. Rogers in a Covid mask and you have my allergist. Patiently, in a soothingly calm, Rogers-like voice, he drew pictures for me, explained things as if talking to a toddler, then later quizzed me. "Annnnnddddd...what causes this?" He cupped a hand to his ear, tilted his head, and urged me on by churning his hand.

"Ahhh, sorry, Doc, I didn't know there was gonna be an oral exam," I said, head hung in shame. No lollipop.

Anyway, after he determined I didn't have allergies, he tried several protocols as well, all of them dismal failures as I saw my life scratching away. Then he introduced a real Hallelujah moment in monthly shots.

I said, "Doc, if that'll give me relief, I'm down with traveling across the metro area once a month to get shots."

Two shots, each in the back of my arm above the elbow. A week went by. And then...slow relief! Day by day, the rash got better! At the end of the first month, it started coming back, so I hustled down there and got my next month shots. But then tragedy struck in the return of red splotches. The rash was back, angrier than ever.

I'm scheduled to go back to the doctor next week, but I'm honestly losing faith that they'll find long-lasting relief (I've pretty much given up on a bonafide "cure" as I've stumped every doc, NP, and specialist in town). It's really getting tiresome having to explain to everyone I meet that I'm not contagious, nor am I a Meth-head with my constant scratching.

While on the topic of unexplained things, they don't call Peculiar County "peculiar" for no reason! Come on down, stay for a while. Just look out for ghosts, murderers, witches, and things that shouldn't fly in the night sky. That's Peculiar County. Book your visit now.

 

It's a Man's World...unless, of course, you're a praying mantis.

And you guys think you have it bad!

Pity the plight of the poor praying mantis. Gather around for a little science lesson...

The other day my wife and I are sitting on the back deck. She's tending to a potted plant and says, "Hey! A walking stick!"

"Kill it," I scream, because everyone knows sticks shouldn't walk, a mutant aberration of science gone awry. And because everything I know about science I've learned from cartoons.

Upon further exploration, my wife says, "No...wait... It's a praying mantis."

Which is even worse. "Squish it! Get rid of it! For God's sake, destroy the beast!"

"No," says my wife, "praying mantises are good. She'll eat the bad bugs."

Hmm. "What in the world makes you think it's a female?" I ask.

She rolls her eyes, says, "There's a huge difference between male and female praying mantises."

I reached deep into the darkest pockets of my useless and dusty stored facts and plucked out something horrific. "Oh, yeah! It has a head, right? Because after the mantises procreate, the female eats the male's head."

"That's not the difference I'm talking about, but, yes, they do that."

"But why?" I knew the females feasted on heads, just couldn't figure out their motivation. "Are the females tired of a lifetime of male oppression? Are they into weird insectoid, extreme S&M and get carried away? Do they hate males?"

At this point, my wife's not a firm believer in the adage, There's no such thing as a stupid question. "They're just bugs doing...buggy things."

"Well...humans can't do it," I grumble.

Ever the scientist, my wife gives it more thought. "I imagine the males' head is full of protein and good for the eggs. Mantises only mate once, then it's off with the males' head."

"So...you're saying that the male kinda just hangs out, has sex once, then at the peak of his short life, he gets his head eaten?"

"Pretty much."

"...No wonder they pray all the time." 

For more strange science (not really) and weird wonders of the world (or at least a spooky lil' Kansas town in the sixties), check out Peculiar County by clicking....wait for it...RIGHT HERE!