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Cyberchondria18.June.04We’re going to discuss something near and dear to my heart today; Hypochondria. I’ve been known to wake up around three a.m., look at the clock and just know I’m having a heart attack. I’m not suffering any chest pains, shortness of breath or pain down my arm radiating up to my jaw. It’s simply the fact that I once read that paramedics call the hours after three a.m. Heart Attack City or something to that effect. Consequently, in my warped little mind, that can be the only reason I’m awake. I must be in the throes of cardiac arrest. A little knowledge is a very dangerous thing, especially in my hands.When I took abnormal psychology in college, my professor warned the class that as we studied various mental illnesses we would believe we had most of them. It was true! I discovered that I was schizophrenic. It didn’t matter that I barely had enough consciousness at that young age for one personality, let alone two, I was convinced that I had this disease. After all, my two favorite flavors were chocolate and…are you ready for this? Vanilla! How could that be? I had TWO FAVORITES! Institutionalization could not be far away. I was right. The institution of marriage is where I’ve been incarcerated for the past eighteen years. It hasn’t been entirely against my will, and I’ve been given day passes out on occasion, but still. An institution is an institution, even if this one does come with better food. I’m only kidding. It’s been entirely against my will. But lets get back to hypochondria. Everyone knows one or has one in their family. They’re the ones that provide the entertainment at family gatherings. The Internet has only increased our numbers. They even have a new name for our malaise. We have Cyberchondria, or Internet Print Out Syndrome. This comes from being able to use the resources so readily available online to ferret out new diseases to match our concerns. Now our symptoms are just a click away. We used to have to scour books for information on symptoms, or ask expert medical advice on the stomachache that was most certainly cancer. Not so any longer. At any hour of the day or night, cyberchondriacs worldwide devour bandwidth at alarming rates in search of the name for their current pain. We routinely kill entire forests to print out reams of paper from websites claiming to be able to cure our current disease. Doctor’s love it when we come to our appointments already knowing our diagnosis before they do. I’ve come to believe that my daughter has contracted flesh eating dandruff. Never heard of that? Me either, but I’m sure it’s out there. She scratches her head constantly, and only in one spot. No, it’s not lice because we’ve looked for those alarming little creatures. It has to be Flesh Eating Dandruff. Either that or it’s a simple personality tic. I’m placing my bets on the former and I’m searching the dandruff websites for information on a cure. What’s fun is that you can be a cyberchondriac for everyone around you as well! Especially your coworkers.
Walter: “I don’t?” You: “No. How long have you had that…that thing on you face?” Walter: “Thing? I’ve got a thing?” You: “It looks like a terminal case of Dingle-Boogeritis!” |
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editor's note: due to stoopid people who can't behave in public (ie, spammers) we have had to turn off the comment feature on our older columns. We'll try waiting a while and then turning it back on to see if they get bored and go away. In the mean time, we will manually add any REAL comments if you email them to us. The link is below.
Scripts modified from Matt Wright's guestbook. His scripts can be found at Matt's Script Archive
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