When You Itch For a Laugh

Even three thousand years ago Solomon understood there was a time for laughter. We all know well his declarations of there being a time to live, to die, a time to cry. And yes, to laugh.

Norman Cousins was a medical sociologist at a prominent medical center in California. He faced the dark side of Solomon's promise and several times stared into the shadows of incurable life-threatening disease, and laughed. He discovered the power of laughter and was able to essentially humor his diseases into remission and go on for many more productive years. During the acute phase of his illnesses he had comedy videos, humor books, and anything that provoked laughter brought to him and he laughed himself back to health. The Anatomy of an Illness was his best seller which described his discoveries of how a merry heart not only did his soul good but his body also. I consider myself a serious minded-person so have a lot to learn from his writings.

I have a difficult time finding the silver linings in dark clouds but occasionally one shows up for me. In an essentially bleak humorless childhood a small incident occurred which has been a source of many laughs through the years. "Lab Test" insures this incident will live beyond me.

College students are a different sub-species than the rest of homo sapiens. I spent an inordinate portion of my growth and development as one of these. Consequently, I was able to enter into extensive questionable student behavior that was to prove the source of many laughs twenty years later. The poverty-induced creativity of my learning years spawned a number of memorable and now highly amusing pot-luck suppers as readers of "Diners Beware" will find out.

My favorite uncle died a few months ago and his great legacy to the family was his sense of humor. He could find something funny in most anything and if not, he created it on the spot. "Counterfeiters" immortalizes his ability to generate wide-eyed wonder in impressionable young children with his money machines and special scratch pads. He will take your posthumous laughter as a compliment to a life well lived.

Cats prove to be limitless sources of amusement. It is hard to imagine something more amusing than watching my cat turn somersaults in pursuit of a rubber band or chasing a fleck of styrofoam around the house at warp nine.

This silly little feline will endear herself to me by meeting me at the door each evening and then falling down at my feet, purring loudly. "A Man's Perfect Love" offers a possible humorous alternative to those of us who are relational challenged with real women.


Lab Test

In southern California it can get really hot in July, as much as 110 degrees if one lives inland from the ocean. Last week it got to 126 in parts of the desert. On one of these very hot smoggy days my mother had an appointment for a physical exam and had been asked to bring an early morning urine sample to the physician's office with her. Lacking for any suitable container in which to collect her specimen, she elected to make do with a half-pint Black and White Scotch bottle.

My mother is a born shopper, living for opportunities to indulge in department stores like I. Magnin. To maximize her day she combined a shopping expedition with her doctor's appointment. She took the Scotch bottle with her and put it on the front seat of the car so she would not have to return home to collect it. Because it was one of those torrid days, she left the car windows down while she went shopping before her appointment.

When she came back to the car, the bottle was gone.


Diners Beware

We often take the safety of the U.S. food supply for granted until some major calamity gets reported in the media. Notorious examples such as the Jack 'n the Box salmonella poisonings in the Pacific Northwest or the crytosporidium disaster in Milwaukee galvanize public consciousness. As if it is needed, here is another potential threat to the American food supply. Psychological damage to pot-luck supper attendees has been induced by college students living on the edge of poverty who feel compelled to bring unorthodox food stuffs into the food supply, because the price is right. Hapless diners are often exposed to these during pot-luck meals, especially when their luck runs out.
***

While attending Northwestern University, I often found myself on the edge of a financial black hole and frequently indiscriminant in my eating habits. Financial necessity proved a mother of invention and culinary creativity. I often autoclaved a TV dinner in the very same sterilizer in which I made fruit fly media. Disgusting? I'll leave out the other morbid details of my undergraduate eating habits in my fruit fly lab.

It so happened that during my senior year my roomie and I attended a church where a weekly potluck supper in homes was a tradition. I was poor. I was creative and resourceful. I was hungry. So was my room mate. The rent was late. The makings of a psychological food disaster were nearly complete. It was finally our turn to host the Thursday pot-luck. Now, all the ingredients were in place to disrupt the congregation's serenity and create transient culinary psychosis.

I had the good fortune of coming into a five-pound block of frozen whole squid for about a dollar. We had grand visions of seafood wonders that would be the talk of the church for years. With enthusiasm, my roomie and I cut off all those myriad tentacles, fried them and served them as a side dish of "crunchies," never really saying what they were. The amputated bodies yielded their exotic meat which then went into a seafood chowder served in a fine English tureen. We served both with confidence, trusting our guests to be hungry enough to have lost most of their discrimination.

The twelve or fifteen people present were exclaiming how good the meal was until one of them actually had the audacity to ask "What are we eating?" Someone else quickly asked "Just what are those little round things?" as she pointed to the tentacles. I replied "Those are suuuucction cuppps." A sudden clatter of utensils in freefall filled the air. A pregnant pause followed. Helpfully, with an insouciant smile, I also offered "And guess where the bodies ended up that were attached to them. Are we ready for more soup?" I didn't run out of food that night.

***

About a month later the members of our small congregation had recovered from our squid-induced trauma and were sufficiently hungry to once again risk pulling up to our dining table. I had something really special for them. Rabbit.

At the time I had been working about a year in a pharmacology lab in the medical school doing research on the molecular basis of action of a class of cardiac drugs called glycosides. This Nobel Prize research required me to use the hearts of rabbits in surgical experiments and to do all manner of radio-isotopic studies on them. Experimental design required me to remove these from the rabbits without benefit of any kind of drugs or agents. I will assure you the rabbits did not suffer, and so that you won't, I will spare you the details of how I ended up with fine rabbits sans hearts.

The rabbits we used in our experiments were specially raised in sterile lab environments and fed a high grade Purina Rabbit Chow (there actually is such a thing). These rabbits were cleaner and safer than probably most of the meat products available in the grocery store, never injected with hormones and antibiotics as most farm animals are.

In the pharmacology department we had an enterprising secretary from France who was a culinary genius and she delighted in taking home my heartless rabbits and cooking them up into pates and other continental exotics. An industrious technician in another lab tanned the fine white pelts. It occurred to me that if the departmental secretary could take home rabbits and make continental wonders out of them, then I should be able to use them to bring a new dimension to the weekly church pot-luck supper.

On this particular Thursday two fresh rabbits went home with me on the subway, discretely wrapped in plain brown paper. These went into an antique cast iron skillet with a fine blend of spices and were then served hot with a nice side dish of rice and some appropriately inexpensive vegetables, commensurate with a student budget.

An inquiring mind asked "This chicken's different. Wha'd you do to it?" Politely, with even tone I said "It's not chicken." Silence erupted at the table and I knew that every neuron in every brain around the table was thinking that I better have a good explanation, and fast. With another insouciant smile I simply said "It's today's experiment from the medical school." The pregnant pause was punctuated with a crescendo clattering of fork and knife. Visions of rare virulent viruses with no treatment and horrific endings were suddenly seen. I assured them they would not experience any of the Egyptian plagues as described in the book of Exodus or the curses found in the book of Revelations. I also suggested that God no longer used this kind of thing to get our attention.

Curiously, in the future we did not seem to get listed as a host home for the potluck dinners and were often reminded we didn't need to feel compelled to bring a dish. It was suggested we bring carbonated drinks and cups.

***

Two years later I was living on the edge of another financial black hole in another state while working on a masters degree in hospital management. For better or worse, there were many people attending the same church with me, and this church held pot-luck suppers.

I had an acquaintance in this church who was a Davy Crockett look-alike complete with coon-skin cap, leather pants and shirt, Indian moccasins, and a grand pot belly. This guy, Bill, was even complete with black-powder muskets. These were antique working replicas actually requiring a powder horn, gun cotton, tamping rod, lead balls, and the like. One could get off a round every ninety seconds or so with one of these muskets, if they were really good.

Several times Bill had asked me to go hunting with him. I am not a hunter, have never shot anything, and really don't want to. I declined to blast away the natural order of things. Once again, Bill called me up and was insistent that I go hunting with him, that very night. To keep Bill happy and prevent the total rupture of our friendship, I met up with him about 9 PM to go coon hunting under a full moon with the air temperature at minus twenty.

For four frigid hours I chased around with him across ice, snow, and other solid forms of water looking for those ring-tailed curiosities. Inside I was praying those coons were a whole lot smarter than we and were curled up in some warm place having whatever kind of dreams it is that coons have. Fortunately, my moral fortitude was never tested and we never saw the first living thing during that glacial wandering. Bill admitted defeat and we headed back into town, my brain filled with delicious thoughts of a warm bed.

We were on the main four lane road into town when just blocks from Bill's house I saw something on the yellow line. As we drove by, the head lamps revealed it to be nothing other than one very still coon; that ringed tail giving him away. For unknown reasons I assumed it was a him. After all most females are smart enough to be asleep in bed and not out in the middle of the road at minus twenty degrees. I shouted at Bill to drive back around the block and grab it. He complied and we were well rewarded for our efforts. The coon was very dead and essentially undamaged. Mr Coon had died from a glancing blow to the back of the head, which left only a small bit of evidence. Most importantly, he was still quite warm. At minus twenty degrees a dead coon would cool down in less than ten minutes. We both knew this coon was fresh, undamaged, and that it had been presented to us by the universe in unusual fashion at an auspicious time.

A light went on in both our frontal cortexes at the same time: barbecued coon for the potluck supper at church tomorrow!! We eagerly sprinted the last blocks to Bill's house where he expertly removed the fine pelt which he later was able to sell for $35. Being a Davy Crockett look-alike, Bill also knew all about dressing animals and proceeded to do this with me attending in a supervisory capacity. He also knew about cooking such things and proceeded to spend much of the next day performing various incantations and rituals to get the wild taste out and to render our ring-tailed find palatable for a banquet.

Next evening we took our offering to church, contained in an ignominious white and blue corning ware casserole with one of those clear glass tops. We watched with silent curiosity to see how Mr. Coon would be received by the Kingdom of God. Amazingly, the pot was quickly emptied.

Mid-way through the second sampling of the culinary treasures of Heaven, someone commented "This BBQ is different. What kind of beef is this?" With forced seriousness, I said simply "It's not beef." A short cross examination followed. "It's pork then?" "No." "It can't be lamb, can it?" "No" "It sure isn't chicken." "No." A glazed look came over our fellow diner's eyes, as if to say "Oh no!! "What have I gotten into this time?" Without prompting I simply said "Road Kill." "Roadkill!!???" "Yes, coon." "Whhhattt?" "You can't do that!" "We did." Funny, I don't remember the pot-lucks that came after than one.

***

Medical students are well known for living in abject poverty. Perhaps that is why physicians compensate later in life with opulent incomes. I was no different in that the tab for my first year of medical school alone was about $23,000. You can be certain I was intent on getting full value for my education.

It happens that the sciatic nerve in large frogs is very useful for conduction physiology studies that will enrich the frontal lobes of tentative nervous first-year medical students. Experimental design often demands the freshest of ingredients, be it rabbits or frogs. One day we went to physiology lab to discover we were going to do nerve conduction studies using the sciatic nerve from frogs. For those of you that don't know, the sciatic nerve runs from the lower spine down the back of the leg. Each of the twelve lab teams was given a very large and very alive frog which we were instructed to dispatch in a humane fashion. This done, we were instructed to remove the large succulent legs from the frogs and place them on a bed of crushed ice. We were then instructed to carefully remove the sciatic nerve from the back of the leg and then go ahead with our experiments following the detailed instructions in our lab manuals.

Those twelve pairs of large fresh luscious frog legs, still packed in crushed ice were quickly forgotten. While others were busily measuring conduction velocities and the efficacy of various neuro-blocking agents, I was busily planning a menu, with the main course being something truly special. Discretely, I roamed around to the other eleven team tables and quietly collected the forgotten treasures, still packed in ice. The experiments were deemed a success by all but I am certain I had the best results of the whole class. I will leave it to you to guess what kind of results I had.

Sometimes it's simply better to not ask.


Counterfeiter

My dear Uncle Marion was a printer with an unbounded sense of humor that served him rather well for more than eight decades. I can envision small children chasing after him to see what antics he would be up to next. I sometimes wondered if he had the ability to pull rabbits out of hats.

As a printer, he often made scratch pads out of left-over waste paper; making these in myriad brilliant colors; iridescent pink, royal blue, green, salmon, canary, and ten shades of white and ivory. He would put piles of this scrap together, trim them to size in his hydraulic paper cutter, and then make them up into pads with his super duper pad adhesive. I remember being entranced by these, even as a post-adolescent trying to be a self-important college student at an Ivy league school. Before you ask. Ivy really does grow on the walls at my alma mater.

One day Uncle Marion got a brilliant idea that was to earn him many laughs and the consternation of numerous skeptics. Once again, he got the urge to make pads, but this time he decided to use a very special kind of green paper with very small red and blue threads running throughout. He found the only place he could get this kind of paper was in banks. Banks? That's right.

He went down to the local International National State Bank of Hometown America and obtained several packets of newly-printed dollar bills and then hurriedly disappeared into his printing shop to work his magic. He proceeded to take bundles of fifty fresh dollar bills and a piece of stiff cardboard and make them into 'scratch' pads with adhesive down the long edge. Then the real fun began.

This octogenarian humorist would slip a 'pad' of his special scratch into his coat pocket and as needed during the commerce of daily life would pull it out to pay tribute. One time he checked into a hotel and wanted to pay a tip to the porter for carrying his bags. Without fanfare, my uncle pulls out his pad and peels off a couple of bills and hands them to the now mute and uncertain porter. With a small bit of urgency the porter asks "Just what kind of money is this?" My uncle says with insouciant smile "It's good money, of course. I've been a printer all my life and I do good work." Now what would you do if you were the porter? Try to pass the bills? Burn them? Wad them up and toss them away? Give 'em back?

Over the years my uncle saw his special scratch suffer all these fates. One time outside a small grocery he offered a young fellow a tip, carefully peeling a couple of fresh Lincoln portraits from the top of his pad. With uncertainty, the fellow took them. My uncle assured him it was good money as he was a good printer. A buddy nearby told him he could go to the big house if he got caught passing around this kind of money. With some urgency, as my uncle watched, he flicked his bic and incinerated the suspect tribute money, right there on the sidewalk. My uncle gained at least another decade of happy living from his raucous belly laughter.

It turns out my uncle had several modus operandi that he used to pass out his tribute money. One of these involved a small plastic machine made on the 38th floor of some obscure toy factory in inner city Hong Kong. It yielded him at least the status of the Wizard of Oz in the eyes of many cousins, nephews, and nieces during their important formative and impressionable years.

This machine allowed one to load up to four pieces of real American currency into a small concealed inner compartment. My uncle would then ask a hapless child if he would like a dollar for ice cream from the Good Humor truck or some other childhood dream. Dreams were cheap back then. After a rather animated affirmative answer, my uncle would say "Let's print your dollar right here with my special machine." With the wide-eyed wonder that only five year olds can muster, they would watch as my uncle carefully loaded a piece of white paper exactly the size of a dollar bill into a small tray on the front of the machine. A single careful turn of a crank on the side would draw this paper into the machine at the same time a real dollar bill emerged from the back of the machine. You would've thought my uncle had just flown to the moon and back. Magic. Next he took them to Mars. He would ask them "Want a $5 bill?" YEAHHHH!!! He loaded another white blank. You know the rest. My uncle could do ANYTHING.

Sometimes children who had been raised with strong moral sensibilities would say to him "You can't do that! Isn't that against the law?" With shame my uncle would say, "I guess we better unprint it then." This magic machine from the 38th floor of Toy Towers would allow nit-witted counterfeiters to put the illicit money into the back of the machine and reverse the crank; taking the good currency in and spitting back out the blank white paper on the front end. I am certain there are people, to this day, living in Eastern Tennessee who are absolutely convinced my Uncle was the Wizard of Oz.


A Man's Perfect Love

Nearly all men dream of an idyllic relationship free of harsh words, one where a single pleasing look tells all. Solomon, the wisest man in ancient times told us it is better to live in an attic than to live in a palace with a contentious woman. We men wilt under the power of contentious words. They are death to the soul.

Imagine a relationship in which someone is waiting for you at the door everyday without fail when you get home from work. She asks for nothing in return but a modest bit of affection, more if you are so inclined. Suppose that the whole time not a single ill word ever crosses her lips, instead only pleasing murmurings. Fantasize that she has actually fallen down at your feet and as much said “I’m yours.” Sounding more than pretty good isn't it?

I actually come home to such a splendid circumstance every day. Never once have I heard a sarcastic word and never once have I been nagged about taking out the garbage, picking up my socks, or mowing the grass. You must think I am living in a Star Trek Holodeck. To further wet your appetite, I have found someone who doesn't like to shop and has never once asked me for money! What? How is this possible? Isn't it genetically determined that females are born to shop? No, not really. This belief about women is only part of the American folk myth. But what is amazing is that my little lady doesn't mind when I go out and buy some new power tool that I simply gotta have. And to push the limits of reality she doesn't mind if I bring other women home in the evening!!

You must be wondering what my secret is to finding Nirvana this side of heaven? Bet you would pay your life's savings to get in on this wouldn't you? Because you are a dear friend I will tell you my secret.

Get a gray female tabby cat and feed her Frisky's Special Diet and be certain to keep around a couple of those big rubber bands used to tie broccoli stocks together as they make the ultimate cat toys.

The best lovers wear fur coats.