Analog Nation

Doctors are basically the modern equivalent of shamans. They poke us, they prod us, they look inside us with weird, uncomfortable flashlights, and then they give us an incomprehensible ten minute monologue. For all their medical advancements and calculated science, the instant they open their mouths they might as well be talking about rooster entrails and aggrieved fire spirits. Hell, that twisting-snake logo of theirs even looks like a totem. We take it on faith that they know why the fire spirits are mad, and what will appease them. We nod a lot. We sign forms and go home.

As a consequence, there’s really nothing they can prescribe that will make us flinch. The 21st century patient is prepared for anything.

Doctor: You have hexamalephasia of the carotid lukeplantic ganglia.
You: Roger that.
Doctor: Eat plenty of beets, rub igneous rock on your thighs, and lift a saxophone over your head after every meal.
You: Sounds good.

For example, the last time I saw a doctor we had a brief conversation involving several words of fifteen letters or more, during which he effortlessly convinced me to hold my mouth open for half an hour so that he could jab the inside of my head with syringes and scalpels. Did I flinch? Nope. Well, I might have flinched once or twice from the actual scalpel jabbing, but not from the suggestion that it was a good idea.

It begs the question, is there a point at which we will flinch?

Here I would postulate that A) such a point does exist, and B) it occupies the place in space/time where doctors start telling us to eat robots.

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• On September 1, 1904, Cardinals pitcher Reginald “Pants” Dixon was beaned in the head by one of his own pitches.

• On September 2, 1906, Reginald “Pants” Dixon mistakenly arrived in Pittsburgh for a game against Philadelphia. Dixon pitched five innings against the Pirates anyway, getting tagged for a 5-0 loss.

• On September 3, 1906, Reginald “Pants” Dixon attempted to steal first. The catcher was too confused to make a pick-off throw, but Dixon slipped and fell halfway to the base. After regaining his composure, he calmly walked back to the batter’s box, and struck out on the next pitch.

• On September 4, 1905, Reginald “Pants” Dixon lost track of a pop fly in the sun, and kept waving off his teammates to make the catch even after the ball was caught to end the inning. The opposing pitcher was too polite to say anything, so he took his warm-up tosses around him.

• On September 5, 1907, Reginald “Pants” Dixon broke both legs sliding into third base. (His slide left him nearly eight feet short of the bag.)

• On September 6, 1905, Reginald “Pants” Dixon made the lone start of his career — and by some accounts, of his entire life — behind the plate. Both of St. Louis’ catchers were out with food poisoning, so players drew straws in the clubhouse before the game. Dixon drew the short straw. In all, he was charged with 11 passed balls and struck by 23 pitches, at one point attempting to set up behind the umpire. Dixon was benched in the sixth, and in his absence the Cardinals rallied back to win 14-12.

• On September 7, 1907, after falling asleep in the bullpen, Reginald “Pants” Dixon mistook his seventh inning relief appearance for a start. When the game ended three innings later, Dixon assumed it was because of impending rain.

• On September 8, 1908, Reginald “Pants” Dixon complained of headaches throughout a 7-2 loss to the Giants. After the game it was determined that he was wearing the bat boy’s cap.

• On September 9, 1906, Reginald “Pants” Dixon admitted to the press his agonizing fear of dirigibles.

• On September 10, 1909, Reginald “Pants” Dixon stumbled on the third base chalk line while walking onto the field, hit his head, and lost consciousness. Eddie Higgins started in his place and shut down the Braves 6-0.

• On September 11, 1906, Reginald “Pants” Dixon beaned three consecutive home plate umpires, knocking out all three. Only one reserve umpire was on hand, so when the third base ump came in to call ball & strikes, the reserve ump had the whole field to himself. Dixon knocked him out with a line drive in his next at-bat.

• On September 12, 1908, the infamous “barrel incident” occurred in St. Louis. After Reginald “Pants” Dixon and Julian “Shrap” McGuiness were both shelled and yanked from the game by the second inning, the pitchers nearly got into a brawl outside the visitors’ clubhouse. Tensions boiled after the game when the two happened upon each other in a bar, and in the ensuing fight McGuiness stuffed Dixon into a barrel and rolled him down Vandeventer Avenue. Dixon finally crasheed to a halt in some bushes, and eventually walked home with the barrel still stuck over his head and torso.

• On September 13, 1909, Reginald “Pants” Dixon was attacked by a pelican while taking the mound for the bottom of the fifth. Dixon fled the field, and the bird received a standing ovation as it flew away.

• On September 14, 1913, Reginald “Pants” Dixon pitched his last game, taking on Julian “Schrap” McGuiness one more time. For his part, McGuiness never let a runner past second base. Dixon repeatedly tripped on the pitching rubber — and somehow bounces a pitch off the third base bag — but managed to take a perfect game two outs into the ninth inning. On the final pitch of his career, Dixon gave up a game-winning home run to the last hitter in the order: McGuiness. In the year following Dixon’s retirement, the Cardinals posted their first winning record of the 20th century.

Celebrating a birthday at one’s favorite restaurant is a once-a-year treat, filled with singing, candles, and camaraderie. Yet behind this wholesome veneer lurks an undercurrent of lies — 52.1% of all in-restaurant birthday celebrations are fraudulent. These celebrations, whether acts of mischief or malice, are perpetrated upon the establishment in the hopes of receiving free cake.

The figure was uncovered in 2007. Bernard Gentry, head of the Spirit & Flare Committee at the National Council of Chain Restaurants, had long been convinced that member chains like Applebee’s and TGI Friday’s were losing time and money at the hands of those falsely claiming a birthday. Not only is dessert a high-margin menu item, but having the whole waitstaff sing to the perpetrator reduces the turn-around time of all tables. Gentry wanted the entire Council to adopt rules mandating that government-issued identification be produced for birthday celebrations, but was shot down on the grounds that A) such ID-verification would ruin the surprise for genuine birthday boys/girls, and B) it was mean.

Undaunted, Gentry commissioned an independent audit to determine exactly how many birthday celebrations are false. The eighteen-month study, conducted by the University of Minnesota’s School of Statistical Numbers, was based on a double-blind, cap-weighted survey of over 16,000 chain restaurant patrons. The results were unequivocal: More than half of all birthday dessert/song/clapping events were presented to patrons who were lying about their dates of birth.

Why do they do it? One key factor may be the spectacle itself. Cake fraud incidence is higher at restaurants that use sparklers on their cakes, and rises exponentially with the length and complexity of the waitstaff’s performance. Average amount of “flare” worn per server also plays an indirect role. Certain Hooters locations have cake fraud rates well over seventy percent, for obvious reasons.

Gentry himself acknowledges that the underlying reasons are not always cut and dry, but the effect on the bottom line is the same regardless of intention. “Some are trying to impress a date. Some want to play a joke on a friend, by having the whole restaurant turn to look while nine people in striped shirts blow slide whistles at them. Really though, most just want a free Apple-Cherry Mud Slinger Bomb® or Death By Chocolate Earthquake Landslide®. Bunch of greedy bastards, all of them.”

• On August 18, 1883, Thomas Edison completed a working prototype for what is widely regarded as his worst invention, the pedal-operated pencil breaker. The shoebox-sized contraption, which weighed over thirty pounds, was designed to sit on the desk of a clerk or accountant, who powered it with his feet. Why an accountant would need broken pencils was never fully explained, a fact cited repeatedly by the U.S. Patent and Trademark Office in their unusually vitriolic denial of Edison’s patent application.

• On August 20, 1984, former president Jimmy Carter shattered all previous records for continuous breakdancing, collapsing after 23 hours and 17 minutes. In his book, “Keeping Faith: Memoirs of a President,” Carter called it “the single achievement of which I am most proud, a feat of unadulterated substance that cannot be diluted by politics.”

• On August 21, 1905, Cardinals pitcher Reginald “Pants” Dixon was nearly killed by an errant fastball from his nemesis, Julian “Shrap” McGuiness. The pitch missed Dixon’s head by less than an inch, nearly instigating a brawl as a furious Dixon charged the mound and was met by every single one of McGuiness’ teammates. (The Cardinals remained quietly on the bench.) McGuiness insisted the pitch wasn’t intentional, but most believed it was in retaliation for Dixon calling him a “toe-cracklin’ stack o’ cornpone.” Dixon attempted to return the favor later in the game, but hit an elderly woman in the stands instead.

One of the basic tenets of popular culture is that the villain is always one piece away from completing his master plan. Sauron needed the One Ring. Belloq needed the Staff of Ra. Megatron needed the Allspice, or something — honestly, that movie made so little sense, my back started to hurt (I’m not kidding). The good guys are always the last to find out what the missing piece is, so they spend the rest of the story playing catch-up in the hopes that they can save the world from the orcs/Nazis/Decepticons. Which they do, at an almost miraculous level of reliability.

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