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Maryville, MO —
There are a lot of things the human body comes with we don’t really need, like the appendix, tonsils, wisdom teeth and, in some cases, the brain (four-way stops and dressing for the weather aren’t that hard to figure out, people).
Then there are things we stick in our bodies that have no business being there, like meth, nipple rings and Twinkies. And sometimes strange things enter our bodies simply from curiosity; for example, in the 1970s, G.I. Joe’s hand was just big enough to fit up a six-year-old’s nostril but not small enough to want to come out.
There’s a medical term for this. I think it’s something like pica, or “Hey, guys, watch this,” but let’s just call it Stupid Things People Have in Their Bodies. People like Blanca Riveron from Florida.
Unexplained coughs plagued 62-year-old Riveron for 28 years before she thought about doing something about it. You know, like ask a doctor. According to Fox News, in April a body scan discovered a black mass in Riveron’s lung, and her doctor suspected it to be cancer.
Doctors? Pfft. You see one black mass and immediately it’s something bad. If more medical schools would require students to research the case files of “Ripley’s Believe It Or Not,” this doctor might have seen this black mass for what it really was – a fruit seed Riveron had inhaled in 1984.
A fruit seed in the lungs is, of course, for wussies.
William Lawlis Pace died in a Turlock, Calif., nursing home in April at 103 years old. Pace was the record holder in the “unwanted cranial ammunition acquisition” category of the Guinness Book of World Records. He walked around for 94 years with a .22-caliber bullet in his head. According to the Modesto Bee, his older brother shot him in the head with their father’s rifle in 1917. The Bee neglected to mention how uncomfortable family dinners were after that.
Not to be outdone by a 103-year-old man, in January, an Orland Park, Ill., resident Dante Autullo shot a three-and-a-half inch nail into his brain with a nail gun.
Yes, into his brain. Oh, and he’s fine.
If you’ve never used a nail gun, it doesn’t fire until the tip – where the nail comes out at somewhere near 1,400 feet per second – flattens against a surface, such as a board, a roof, or, apparently a skull.
There are a lot of things the human body comes with we don’t really need, like the appendix, tonsils, wisdom teeth and, in some cases, the brain (four-way stops and dressing for the weather aren’t that hard to figure out, people).
Then there are things we stick in our bodies that have no business being there, like meth, nipple rings and Twinkies. And sometimes strange things enter our bodies simply from curiosity; for example, in the 1970s, G.I. Joe’s hand was just big enough to fit up a six-year-old’s nostril but not small enough to want to come out.
There’s a medical term for this. I think it’s something like pica, or “Hey, guys, watch this,” but let’s just call it Stupid Things People Have in Their Bodies. People like Blanca Riveron from Florida.
Unexplained coughs plagued 62-year-old Riveron for 28 years before she thought about doing something about it. You know, like ask a doctor. According to Fox News, in April a body scan discovered a black mass in Riveron’s lung, and her doctor suspected it to be cancer.
Doctors? Pfft. You see one black mass and immediately it’s something bad. If more medical schools would require students to research the case files of “Ripley’s Believe It Or Not,” this doctor might have seen this black mass for what it really was – a fruit seed Riveron had inhaled in 1984.
A fruit seed in the lungs is, of course, for wussies.
William Lawlis Pace died in a Turlock, Calif., nursing home in April at 103 years old. Pace was the record holder in the “unwanted cranial ammunition acquisition” category of the Guinness Book of World Records. He walked around for 94 years with a .22-caliber bullet in his head. According to the Modesto Bee, his older brother shot him in the head with their father’s rifle in 1917. The Bee neglected to mention how uncomfortable family dinners were after that.
Not to be outdone by a 103-year-old man, in January, an Orland Park, Ill., resident Dante Autullo shot a three-and-a-half inch nail into his brain with a nail gun.
Yes, into his brain. Oh, and he’s fine.
If you’ve never used a nail gun, it doesn’t fire until the tip – where the nail comes out at somewhere near 1,400 feet per second – flattens against a surface, such as a board, a roof, or, apparently a skull.
On Jan. 17, for some reason Autullo held a nail gun in such a way that the firing mechanism pointed directly at his head which, I can only assume, isn’t recommended in the owner’s manual.
“When he got up he looked horrible, he did not feel good at all,” his financee told the Chicago Tribune. “His head hurt.”
I should think so.
Doctor’s put a titanium plate in Autullo’s skull presumably because someone who points a nail gun at his head might not be overly cautious with hammers, heavy machinery or handguns.
Join us for the next edition of Stupid Things People Have in Their Bodies where we explore aspartame, bleached flour and Jägermeister.
Or maybe I’ll just eat a Twinkie and forget the whole thing.
