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“Come here, Frankie. Come here. Come on, Frankie!”
That was my neighbors a few weeks ago when they got their new puppy.
(And named him after me. Sorta…I’ve never met them.)
Six weeks later here’s what I hear:
ARF! ARF! ARF! ARF! ARF! ARF! ARF! ARF! ARF! ARF! ARF! ARF!
I hear Frankie barking at 5:45am when I walk Snickers the Wonder Dog.
ARF! ARF! ARF! ARF! ARF! ARF! ARF! ARF! ARF! ARF! ARF! ARF!
I hear Frankie barking when I grill on my back deck.
ARF! ARF! ARF! ARF! ARF! ARF! ARF! ARF! ARF! ARF! ARF! ARF!
I hear Frankie barking when I watch Snickers sniff and swirl at 10pm before she goes to bed.
Seems like Frankie’s in the dog house.
I’m sure his owners are having an awful time.
And so is Frankie.
Because last night I heard this:
SHUT UP, FRANKIE!
Note to everyone: All puppies are cute. But realize that they grow up. They take work. And for the most part, you don’t really want to do it. Leave the puppy at the pet store.
And if you’re gonna shout, “SHUT UP, FRANKIE!” say it to my face.
Even though there’s at least one person who wished that I would go kaboom during my colonoscopy, I didn’t.
In fact, all’s good.
As a follow up to my article yesterday, here’s another good read for those of you of a certain age who are preparing for your own procedure: When People Explode During Colonoscopies.
Here are some stats you can use to dazzle your friends during your next round of Trivial Pursuit:
Housed in your large intestine are hundreds of species of beneficial bacteria that help digest those bits of food your small intestine misses. In the process, these bacteria generate a variety of gases, including carbon dioxide, oxygen, nitrogen, hydrogen and methane, to name a few. Two of them — hydrogen and methane — also happen to be combustable. Given that the average person’s bacteria produce between 1 and 4 pints of gas per day, a five-foot stretch of colon can pack some formidable explosive potential.
Titles you don’t want to read right before your colonoscopy today: How to keep colonoscopy patients from exploding, and other winners from the 2012 Ig Nobel Awards.
Here’s the writeup:
MEDICINE PRIZE: Emmanuel Ben-Soussan and Michel Antonietti [FRANCE] for advising doctors who perform colonoscopies how to minimize the chance that their patients will explode.
REFERENCE: “Colonic Gas Explosion During Therapeutic Colonoscopy with Electrocautery,” Spiros D Ladas, George Karamanolis, Emmanuel Ben-Soussan, World Journal of Gastroenterology, vol. 13, no. 40, October 2007, pp. 5295–8.
REFERENCE: “Argon Plasma Coagulation in the Treatment of Hemorrhagic Radiation Proctitis is Efficient But Requires a Perfect Colonic Cleansing to Be Safe,” E. Ben-Soussan, M. Antonietti, G. Savoye, S. Herve, P. Ducrotté, and E. Lerebours, European Journal of Gastroenterology & Hepatology, vol. 16, no. 12, December 2004, pp 1315-8.
Check out the whole set of Ig Nobel articles. Really great stuff.
I’ll try not to pop.