How To Tell When You Need Brain Surgery

My friend Linda popped by the other day and we sat on the front porch in the sun and chitty-chatted. What was I up to?  Well, I was just trying to make a lasagna with skinny little slices of zucchini in place of the pasta. Oh? Did I use a mandoline? I didn't. I used a grater. And then you salted and sweated the zucchini? Why no I did not. I don't like to sweat anything. Ha ha! Well Linda's a great cook and we batted around a few more ideas about dinner and talked about the weather, which had just turned nice. I'm surprised you're not out in your garden on a day like this, I said to Linda.

Oh, she said. I'm not supposed to bend over at all because I just had brain surgery.

Let me just say right now that if you just had brain surgery and you do not lead with the information that you just had brain surgery, and instead you toss out that little tidbit twenty minutes in, it's definitely a sign you needed brain surgery.  If I were facing brain surgery, everyone on my Facebook page would know about it well in advance. I would collect hopes and prayers and secretly hold out for offers of baked goods. I would start out with a wry statement, preferably including a pun of some sort, designed to make me look upbeat and resigned in the face of fate. More posts would follow in the ensuing weeks, any of which would serve in the capacity of last words, in order to keep my impending brain surgery in the minds of all. The closer I got to my brain surgery, the more philosophical my posts would become, with an undercurrent of desperation detectable only by my closest friends. The second to last post would just be oh mommy oh mommy oh mommy followed by a brave and somewhat flippant statement demonstrating my cheerful non-belief in an afterlife and including, preferably, another pun, just in case I wouldn't be capable of coming up with one afterwards, and then as soon as it was over I'd be all over the internet whooping and hollering again. People on the other side of the planet would know I had brain surgery. Small woodland creatures would gossip about me amongst themselves.

Photos by Tom Fritz

Linda got brain surgery by dumb luck. She had the dumb luck of mixing up her prescription meds and took a mess of Conflagra when she thought she was hoovering Lixavixen, and she went all loopy. Her husband Pete was worried and hauled her into the ER and by the time they'd finished looking for the nonexistent stroke, they'd unearthed a brain aneurysm and a companion carotid embolism all plump and ready to pop. Well, there are all kinds of things that people say are not brain surgery, but brain surgery is not one of them. They kept her for days and did some head-drilling and some flipping-back of skull bits, but the actual brain surgery was conducted from an entry point in the crotch, even though she's not a Republican. They used wires and cameras and intuition and, in this case, Obamacare.

I've heard of this kind of thing before. Gal goes into the doctor complaining about tipping over too much and they go to town on her, looking for some neurological nightmare, and accidentally stumble over an arsenic-laced land mine of a tumor in her left butt cheek, and excavate it, and she comes out good as new and with a slimmer line.

So that's my advice. Fake a stroke and add in some symptoms that make no sense and go to the ER and let them have at you. They'll be entertained, you'll be thoroughly checked out, and it might not even cost much. Although I'd hurry.

Majority Rules

It's the start of a new year, and Republicans are patting their fingertips together and making nummy noises, eager as maggots on roadkill. Dozens of congressional committees await their new chairs. Gavels quiver, lobbyists prowl the hallways in a state of arousal, and resigned liberals reach for the lube. Things are going to be different now.

The new majority, sensitive to the charge that their positions are rigid--and some of them are very rigid indeed--have already softened their stance on promoting more women and minorities in their ranks, and are poised to install a cohort of mostly white men. Except for Rep. Devin Nunes (CA), who is also a mostly white man.

Jason Chaffetz, the incoming chair of House Oversight, the committee in charge of ignoring things, is expected to hold the line. The Appropriations committee hopes to continue the good work begun in the 1980s, when rule changes enabled a robust new financial sector that appropriated America's pension plans. The stubborn persistence of pockets of overtime pay and the threat of an uptick in the minimum wage signal the need for more appropriations.

Rob Bishop, the new chair of the Natural Resources committee, has warned that there are still some natural resources left and he will see to their extraction. Citizens living above shale fields can look forward to taking it right up the ass in exchange for a brief boom-town bump followed by years of desolation that can be blamed on future liberals.

Helming the Agriculture committee, Rep. Mike Conaway has promised to maintain Cheez Doodle price supports and has announced the implementation of a new program to increase yields through the application of a mulch of dead honeybees.

The new majority is in agreement on the need to end Obamacare, replacing it with the previous system, to which they intend to introduce economies via a nationwide network of trapdoors, roulette wheels, and tiger cages.

The new chair of the Science, Space, and Technology committee is particularly excited about his plans to remove Science altogether and replace it with Volleyball and Driver's Ed.

This suits incoming majority leader Mitch McConnell, who has vowed to reduce the scourge of science in favor of good old-fashioned alchemy, which he credits with turning coal into gold and his own state of Kentucky into a flayed wasteland. His colleague James Inhofe is eager to begin the dismantling of the environment in his new post as head of the Environment committee as soon as he gets done stroking himself.

Chuck Grassley, the new chair of the Judiciary committee, will be in charge of blocking more court nominees. Long renowned for his ability to dig up dirt in candidates' private lives, he vows ever more stringent fabrication.

And finally, John McCain, 112, prepares to take over the Armed Services committee. Famous for his departure from the party line on the subject of torture, he promises to eliminate the need for torture altogether by identifying large geographical areas that might contain terrorists and bombing the living fuck out of them, which is totally fair.

SCOTUS, SCROTUS

My sister Margaret was a towering soul holstered in a tiny body. She was easy to see over, but impossible to overlook. Until she got old.

"Old women are invisible," she complained.

I'm beginning to see what she meant, but I'm not complaining. It's a mixed bag, being ignored. It's not so good when you're trying to get a clerk's attention in a store. But it can work to your advantage if you're, say, trying to assemble some bomb-making materials with a mind toward civic engagement.

But a girl does feel dismissed if she can't even get any action from airport security. If they won't even wave a wand at you when you flash your postal I.D., leak spittle, and bring up Dick Cheney, you can pretty much figure your value as a searchable object of desire has plummeted. You might as well not exist. It can be dispiriting.

But trust the U.S. Supreme Court to hitch the buckboard up to old Dobbin and ride to the rescue! They're coming through for the little guy at last. Some of us had been a little dubious about this group. The Democrats had spent two years trying to crowbar a little daylight between the insurance companies and their profits, and finally cobbled together a bit of improvement for us all, with a not-nearly-socialist-enough piece of legislation called the Affordable Care Act. Or Obamacare, as it is derisively referred to by people who view Obama and Care with equal disdain. And now many of us suspect that the Court is about to knock the whole thing sideways on the grounds that it tramples on the American credo ("You Can't Make Me"). Because if we are lucky enough to get any health insurance, given the shape we're in, we would rather pay a boatload for it, by God. We're not cheap. The Court just heard the case and various lines of questioning have put the outcome in doubt, with some of the justices playing things pretty cagey. Except for Justice Clarence Thomas, who, as always, just said exactly what was on his mind.

Well, it will be a bit before we find out whether the insurance industry will get its money's worth out of this court, but in the meantime, as I suggested, SCOTUS really came through for the little people. Thanks to a recent ruling, the police can throw in a free rectal examination whenever we get hauled in for any little thing. Even minor infractions, like looking all wrong for the neighborhood, can win you a complimentary probe. This court decision only restores the rights of the state. If this sort of thing wasn't a proper role of law enforcement, it would never have been called "copping a feel." And the average American can scarcely whine about being refused insurance for a rectal exam and then turn around and whine about getting a freebie.

The Supreme Court is only plugging a hole in the system. Torrents of contraband are flowing in a direct pipeline from America's buttholes to its jails. And the police have a legitimate interest in stemming that flow. Which means such a procedure couldn't possibly be used as a tool of humiliation. And that's good news! Because even an ignorable, innocent-looking woman of advanced middle age like myself might still have an act of civil disobedience left in her, or get a little mouthy during a public demonstration. And this ruling means I still have the chance one day of hearing that snap of latex gloves behind me. The snapping sound that means someone still wants to know how I really feel, deep inside.

And we thought they didn't care. Thank you, Justices Roberts, Kennedy, Scalia, Alito, and Thomas--take a bow! No, the other way.