Why Do Men Have Nipples? (12 page)

WHY DOES THE BED SPIN AFTER A LONG
NIGHT AT THE BAR?

Nothing is worse than the moment when you hit the sheets and the room starts to spin. Trying to explain why this happens causes almost as much dizziness.

The vestibular system is a complicated network of passageways and chambers within the inner ear, all of which work together to control equilibrium and balance. Inside there are tubes and sacs that contain different fluids, each of which has a different composition. When you are healthy, and both sides of your vestibular system are functioning properly, both sides send symmetrical impulses to the brain. When someone gets very intoxicated, the alcohol changes the density of the blood and this affects the intricate system of balance. That is when the spinning starts. This is very similar to the condition called vertigo.

WHY DO YOU SNORE SO LOUD WHEN YOU
ARE DRUNK?

There is a common serenade in any emergency room. The coarse snore of the regular alcoholic fills the air. Normally, we just ignore it. But sometimes, too much alcohol actually impedes the breathing process. We fix this easily with a short small rubber tube in the nose, an aptly named nasal trumpet. Alcohol increases snoring by relaxing the muscles that hold the throat open, allowing the soft palate tissue and uvula to flutter more as air passes.

IS RED WINE REALLY GOOD FOR YOUR
HEALTH?

Finally, some good news.

Historically there has been a belief that wine has medicinal properties. Hippocrates and Thomas Jefferson both considered wine an important part of their health regimens. Louis Pasteur, the famous French biologist, said, “Wine is the most healthful and hygienic of beverages.”

There now is an enormous amount of research about what has been called “the French Paradox,” that despite a diet rich in fats there is a lower-than-expected prevalence of cardiovascular disease among the Gauls.

Scientific studies have linked this surprising fact to the moderate consumption of alcohol, specifically red wine. Red wine has also been linked to a reduced risk of some cancers, atherosclerosis, heart disease, and even the common cold.

So drink a whole bottle tonight. Your bed will spin but you probably won’t have a heart attack.

DOES MARIJUANA HELP GLAUCOMA?

There are some important medical uses for marijuana, and some of these lead to solid arguments for legalization. However, the use of marijuana for glaucoma does not appear to have any benefit over available medications.

Marijuana does reduce pressure in the eye, but in order to sustain this reduction you would have to smoke about ten to twelve joints a day. Your eye pressure might be lower but you will be too stoned to get anything else accomplished except naked guitar playing, gluttonous pork rind consumption, or deriving profound meaning from Rob Schneider films.

SHOULD YOU DRINK BRANDY WHEN YOU
HAVE FROSTBITE?

The arrival of the Saint Bernard with the little cask around its neck is a heartwarming image but drinking alcohol to warm yourself or prevent frostbite doesn’t make any medical sense, we’re sorry to report. Alcohol consumption actually can be dangerous in these conditions as it decreases blood circulation and thus can enhance heat loss and impair shivering.

CAN YOU GET HIGH FROM LICKING A TOAD?

Poor, sad toads. They always seem to take a backseat to the frogs. Frogs get kissed and turn into princes, and toads just get to cause warts. Well, here is some good news for toads. Toads do not cause warts. Toads do, however, produce a protective substance in the parotid gland behind the eyes. This toxin can make animals, such as dogs, very sick and can be irritating to the human eye. But some people go way beyond touching toads and actually lick them in an attempt to get high from a “psychedelic” substance supposedly found on its skin.

The species known as the Bufo toad does have a psychedelic substance on its skin. This substance is similar to serotonin and LSD and can cause hallucinations. Be careful when trying this method because some people have been arrested for toad licking.

WHY DO PEOPLE SEEM MORE ATTRACTIVE
TO YOU WHEN YOU ARE DRUNK?

Straight from the Department of Psychology at the University of Glasgow, a paper entitled “Alcohol Consumption Increases Attractiveness Ratings of Opposite-Sex Faces: A Possible Third Route to Risky Sex,” thus proving that beer goggles do exist. Feel free to use this paper to excuse your bad behavior.

CHAPTER 6

BATHROOM HUMOR

Leyner
seems to have rebounded from his brief period of remorse and sorrow, and is now back to his crazed ways. Tequila in hand, he is delivering a rambling quasi-coherent lecture about cultural differences in post-defecation hygiene. The audience is appalled, yet raptly entranced by his scholarly scatological soliloquy. As Leyner continues, a hand pops up in the back of the room. The hand belongs to Joel Blake, a celebrity orthodontist, who starts to ask a question but begins to stammer as tears well up in his eyes.

Leyner moves through the crowd with the style and empathic grace of Oprah Winfrey, grabs his hand, and says, “It’s okay Joel, you can tell us, you are among friends.”

“I wipe standing up!” Joel blurts out.

There is a cackle from the gallery but Leyner silences the offender with an icy stare.

“We need to honor everyone’s Way of Wiping,” Leyner says serenely, as he hugs Joel.

The bathroom and all that occurs behind closed doors may be the final taboo. Yet when placed in a comforting environment or in a locker room, people will share their secrets often to unfortunate results.

CAN YOU DRINK YOUR OWN URINE?

Thanks to our wonderful democratic society, you can do whatever you want. The better question is, Why would you want to drink your own piss?

Drinking small amounts of your own urine is probably safe. It is made up of 95 percent water, 2.5 percent urea, and 2.5 percent salt, other minerals, hormones, and enzymes. Actually, some folks consider it to have therapeutic properties. Ask the Chinese Association of Urine Therapy. They say urine is sterile, antiseptic, and nontoxic.

For serious yoga practitioners, drinking one’s urine is called amaroli. One of the most famous users of urine therapy was the prime minister of India from 1977 to 1979, Morarji Desai. At the celebration of his ninety-ninth birthday, Desai attributed his longevity to drinking urine on a daily basis. But, we plan on sticking to morning coffee, a good glass of cabernet, and an occasional Yoo-hoo, even if it knocks a year or two off our life spans.

WHY CAN YOU IGNITE A FART?

• An average fart is composed of about 59 percent nitrogen, 21 percent hydrogen, 9 percent carbon dioxide, 7 percent methane, and 4 percent oxygen. Less than 1 percent of its makeup is what makes a fart stink.

• The temperature of a fart at its time of creation is 98.6 degrees Fahrenheit.

• Farts have been clocked at a speed of ten feet per second.

• A person produces about half a liter of farts a day.

• Women fart as much as men.

• The gas that makes your farts stink is the hydrogen sulfide gas. This gas contains sulfur, which is the smelly component. The more sulfur-rich your diet, the more your farts will stink. Some foods that cause really smelly farts include beans, cabbage, cheese, and eggs. Also soda.

• Most people pass gas about fourteen times a day.

All are important facts, but back to the question: Is it really possible to ignite farts?

The answer to that is yes!

The flammable character of farts is due to hydrogen and methane. The proportions of these gases depend largely on the bacteria that live in the human colon that digest, or ferment, food that has not been absorbed by the gastrointestinal tract before reaching the colon.

There is some danger associated with igniting flatulence. Fraternity guys don’t seem to care.

WHY DO YOU GET ALL “PRUNEY” AFTER A
LONG BATH?

There is nothing like a long soak in a bath to relax your soul. The problem is that you have to deal with the ghastly sight of your hands and feet after exiting. The simple answer for why this occurs is that our outer layer of skin (the epidermis) absorbs a little bit of water when we soak too long in the tub. Voilá! Old lady flesh!

The skin on the feet and hands is thicker than the skin on the rest of the body and therefore makes any changes more noticeable. As the epidermis expands, the layer below it, the dermis, does not swell, so the epidermis buckles in areas. Lovely, right?

IS IT MORE SANITARY TO BE SPIT ON OR
PEED ON?

There is no specific course in medical school to deal with all the secretions that you find yourself faced with as a doctor. It is definitely a rude awakening to find yourself being coughed on, spit on, and even urinated on. All doctors have been doused in a variety of bodily fluids.

One wonderful evening in the ER, I heard a nurse screaming. I found her desperately trying to keep a drunk patient who had passed out from hitting the floor. He was not a small man, and the dead weight was too much to manage. The only way I could get him back on the stretcher was to grab him from behind and throw myself on the stretcher with the patient on top of me. Simple. I could then just roll him over. I unfortunately didn’t plan on him using me as a bedpan the instant we hit the bed.

This is disgusting, of course, but when faced with the option of being urinated on or spat on, I would choose urine. No, this is not a fetish. Normal urine is sterile. It contains fluids, salts, and waste products, but it is free of bacteria, viruses, and fungi. It is not always fragrant, but is certainly cleaner than spit. Spit contains large amounts of bacteria and thus is filthy.

WHY DO BEANS GIVE YOU GAS?

It is unbelievable how much information there is available about farts. Flatulence is the subject of numerous medical studies, books, and CDs. One company even makes a fart filter and underpants designed to absorb odor. But among all this gaseous information it always comes back to the bean, the most famous farting food.

Beans contain high percentages of sugars (oligosaccharides) that our bodies are unable to digest. When these sugars make it to our intestines, bacteria go to work and start producing large amounts of gas. We also form gas from other sources, including the air we swallow, gas that seeps into our intestines from the bloodstream, and carbon dioxide formed from saliva reacting with stomach acid.

There is some help available for those who can’t handle their beans. A product called Beano is readily available. Beano contains a food enzyme extracted from mold, one alpha-galactosidase, that helps to break down the complex sugars in gassy foods. Another method is to soak beans before you cook them, as this cuts down on their gas-producing power if you then discard the water. Unfortunately, you also lose some water-soluble vitamins by doing this.

Other flatugenic foods are broccoli, brussels sprouts, cooked cabbage, raw apples, radishes, onions, cucumbers, melons, coffee, peanuts, eggs, oranges, tomatoes, strawberries, milk, and raisins.

Notice the abundance of vegetables on the fart-producing list. That is why those vegetarians are always passing wind in yoga class as they contort themselves into weird positions.

WOULD YOU DIE IF YOU ATE YOUR
OWN FECES?

There is a psychiatric illness called coprophagia, the eating of one’s own feces. It is an uncommonly reported symptom that can be seen in patients with schizophrenia, alcoholism, dementia, depression, Kluver-Bucy syndrome (ask Mark), and obsessive-compulsive disorder. Scatolia, the smearing of feces, is often seen in psychiatric hospitals. High-functioning individuals may sometimes exhibit coprophagia as part of a paraphilia or abnormal sexual arousal disorder. There are even some claims that Eva Braun urinated and defecated on Adolf Hitler. Sexy!

You can get very sick by eating feces. It shouldn’t be fatal, but complications from snacking on shit include hepatitis, oral infection, abscess, and a variety of other infectious diseases. Besides that, think of the morning breath.

12:05
P.M.

Leyner:
Be right there . . .

Gberg:
OK, I gotta run to the bathroom.

12:15
P.M.

Gberg:
I have returned.

Leyner:
Did you wipe standing up?

Leyner:
Some people do, I’ve heard . . .

Gberg:
Stop mocking me. You know I am sensitive about being a stander.

Leyner:
I’m sorry . . . you know sometimes I pee sitting down . . . out of pure laziness.

Gberg:
That is what they should teach you in school.

Gberg:
Bathroom etiquette.

Leyner:
They should teach boys that they don’t HAVE to stand up . . . that it’s an option.

12:20
P.M.

Leyner:
When my niece was a little girl she said a great thing once on the way back from a little skiing excursion in Lenox, Massachusetts.

Gberg:
And . . . what were these words of wisdom?

Leyner:
It was quiet in the car and all of a sudden she piped up, “I didn’t fart . . . but I’d open a window if I were you.”

Gberg:
With all the new technology, they should make an automatic sensor that senses the gas and opens the window.