Alarm Clock

I was called this morn with a tale about how the 10 y.o.--that's the best estimate that carbon dating has given--female Jack Russell terrier threw-up on my daughter's face as my daughter slept. Is there a worse way to wake up? I think the only thing worse would be having your cell mate wake you up so that you could perform your wifely duties on him. The story brought back a foul memory of my own.

When I was working in the Emergency Room of one particular hospital one night, a patient came in who'd tried to kill himself by taking a bottle of his mom's heart meds (It was a particularly good plan, but he lost his nerve and decided to submit to whatever modern medicine would do to him in order for him to stay alive). One of the first things done in almost every overdose was an insertion of a Lavacuator in the patient's stomach via one of the two holes in his/her face above their mouth. Now, the Lavacuator wasn't an everyday, garden variety NG (nasogastric) tube, all dainty and polite. Nope: a Lavacuator was a hose, was roughly the diameter of the patient's pinkies, and was very impolite upon insertion. I imagine it was a lot like inserting John Holmes--a legendary actor-- through your nose.

Ok, back to the man with mommie's pills in his gut. We--my friend Paul the Nurse, and I--set about working to shove the Lavacuator into the man's nose and down into his stomach. Alas, one of the most popular responses to having a Lavacuator do a deep mining probe via your nose is to puke. It's here I have to tell you that Paul the Nurse was born with and lived by a code of a very sadistic, sick humor. That's one reason why we worked so well together. As the hose was run into his nose and down past his Gag Zone, the patient started to visualize the errors he'd swallowed, before we'd finished. Paul the Nurse, always quick on his feet and always ready to seize the moment for what would most entertain him, saw the the patient's stomach contents--a very cheap macaroni salad--start spraying out the end of the Lavacuator. Paul the Nurse quickly and accurately pointed the open end of the Lavacuator at me. I swear Fucker the Nurse moved the Lavacuator back and forth so as to maximize coverage of me......and he succeeded.

I had cheap, partially digested, discount grocery bought macaroni salad and bile in my hair, all over my scrubs, inside my scrub shirt, between my glasses and my eyeballs, in my pants, in my underwear, under my watch band, and in my shoes.....and a bit inside my nose for added comic relief. Of course it weren't just chunks decorating my visage. No, there was a warm, foul liquid dripping down my face and off my chin. Paul the Nurse responded as you'd expect any medical professional to, that is to say he laughed so hard as to cry and called for other nurses to come in and view my marinated state. That the patient was apologetic really didn't help much.

In all honesty, I can't really blame Paul the Nurse, as he was likely following what he'd been taught. I imagine it was a lot like what we paramedics were taught: when a patient started to throw up, we were to preferentially turn said patient's head toward a nurse--if one was available. If there was no nurse, said patient's head would be turned toward the nearest EMT, and failing that, toward your partner.

Some scientists claim that hydrogen, because it is so plentiful, is the basic building block of the universe. I dispute that. I say there is more stupidity than hydrogen, and that is the basic building block of the universe. Frank Zappa.

If you need proof, get thee to The Creation Museum, in Petersburg, Kentucky, USA. There the ratio of stupidity to hydrogen is so high that comparatively the mass of hydrogen is virtually zero.

Now, don't be so foolish as to think this museum is all about Creationism. No, no, no. This museum is all about objective analysis, science, and cold, hard reasoning, i.e. Creation Science, aka Intelligent Design. Physics, in its various forms, is often considered the most difficult of the sciences, but the difficulty of understanding Physics is far outweighed by the resolve and dedication required to become a Creation Scientist. See, Creation Science doesn't rest on the wobbly foundation of objectivity and scientific method. No, Creation Science is governed by a much more rigorous set of tenets:

1. If you don't understand something, then that something must be guided by the hand of your preferred god(s). Evolution, the origins of the Universe, quantum mechanics, and the disquieting appearance of New Zealanders are all explained by this.
2. If non-Creation Science--physics, cosmology, biology, chemistry, and the like--can't explain something or find an answer for why something is the way it is, that proves that the Universe and life were Yahweh sponsored and managed projects. For instance, traditional science has been unable to explain how and why Hipsters and skinny jeans came into existence. Obviously, this happened because it was in the Supreme Being's blueprints.
3. Creation Science is the only true science as it's the only science that can be taught in Sunday school.
4. To be a credible science, said science has to be approved by the Texas Board of Education.
5. Evidence is only empirical if it can be vetted by passages from the Bible.

It's only intensely disturbing that there are not so small numbers of people that buy into this stuff. How strong can a person's faith be if they feel their faith is being threatened by a bit of information obtained from the use of scientific method and a bit of elbow grease? Isn't it just a wee bit scary to rely on school boards to define what is scientific and what isn't? How in the world did Isaac Newton manage to get his science past his local school board?

Why does faith suddenly need a made-up science to justify itself? I thought that faith, by its definition, needed no proof whatsoever. Silly me.