ROSCOE’S Weak-End Review

What's (hic) up?

Did you hear about the Florida girl who couldn’t stop hiccupping for three weeks? Man, a few years ago I had hiccups for just four days, and I began to think it was terminal. The difference here, I guess, is that this girl’s hiccups would stop when she went to sleep. Mine didn’t.

Needless to say, I didn’t get much sleep for those several days. Pretty hard to sleep with a sensation like somebody shaking you every 10 or 15 seconds. So, the fourth night of not sleeping—oh, about 3 a.m.—I was desperate. Without waking my wife, I got up, drove myself to the nearest ER and requested a lethal injection … And, boy, did I get one.

Obviously, I didn’t die, but it would have seemed a reasonable option at that point. This pony-tail ER doc comes to me with a needle, asking me if I want the shot in the rear end or the arm. The more important question, I thought, was what was in the syringe. “Chlorpromazine,” the doc said. “It’s the only thing that really works.”

“OK—in the arm,” I said. I stopped getting shots in the rear end when I got out of grade school. “Really?” said the doc, seeming a bit taken aback. Then he shrugged and shot me up. “Uh, is there a reason it might have been better in the butt?” I asked, somewhat suspicious. “Yeah,” said the doc. “That’s a big dose. You’re gonna be a little sore.”

A little sore. Yeah, I only lost partial use of my arm for the next three days. But that wasn’t the worst part. I didn’t know what chlorpromazine was—that its other name is thorazine, that it’s a heavy-duty anti-psychotic strong enough to stop a raging musk ox in its tracks or that using thorazine to cure hiccups is like using an atomic bomb in your flower bed to plant tulips.

“You got somebody to drive you home?” asked the doc. “No, why?” I said, now really suspicious. He looked at the clock. “How far do you live from the hospital?” “About 20 minutes,” I said. “Then if I were you, I’d get going right now. You may get a little whoozy by the time you get home.”

A little whoozy. Good thing there weren’t many cars on the road at that hour. By the time I got home, I could barely come up with my own name—or walk. Somehow I made it to bed and passed out. For the next 36 hours I was of no use to God or man—which wasn’t funny because we were selling our house and we didn’t have long to finish emptying it out. My wife—who didn’t want to move in the first place—was not very understanding about my total inability to move without an absolutely Herculean effort. I think I still have the scars from that.

So, if somebody offers to cure your hiccups with thorazine—don’t. Apparently, there is one other medically proven treatment—and I’m not making this up: “Digital rectal massage.” But if you’re ever in that position, take my advice: Ask for it in the arm.

Stop the leaks

These compromises of our national security have got to stop. First it’s The New York Times publishing classified information in the war on terror—warrantless electronic surveillance, etc. And now this: Bush has two moles removed from his forehead.

Bad link

Apologies to those who tried to go to the Atlantic magazine article, “They Won’t Know What Hit Them,” about the big-money assault on traditional marriage in America. It was a bum link. Here’s the right one.