ECKLEBURG
2004-04-14 - 2:47 p.m.
I hate sneezing. HATE it. In my otherwise fairly well-adjusted life, I feel I am fairly normal. But sneezing is the worst!
I think this all started when I was young and continually exposed to the factoids that television is forever spewing out. Given my penchant for remembering stupid, useless factoids, I have absorbed many. Two, in particular have stayed with me, however:
1) Humans are born with all the brain cells they will ever have
2) When you sneeze, you kill some absurd number of brain cells. I think it is about 612 gazillion per sneeze.
Putting the two together when I was younger, I have come to the belief that with each successive sneeze, you lose intelligence.
My cold last week set me back a full grade I think! And I am cruising toward early Alzheimer's
disease if I develop allergies out here in VA.
Now, rationally I know all kinds of things kill brain cells -- drinking, running into doors, Republicanism. But you can FEEL them going when you sneeze. You can visualize the slo-mo replay of your brain shaking off all the little brain cells that couldn't quite hold on and having them fall to their deaths at the bottom of my cerebral cortex.
I get this image of that scene in Star Wars where Luke gets the "whose your daddy" lesson from old man Vader. You know -- where he is so shaken by the news that he falls/jumps into the giant abyss below. Except in my head Luke is a brain cell, and there are millions of Luke's on little catwalks all throughout my brain, and my sneeze is the like a bullhorn giving them all a little bad-news shakeup.
So next time you feel a sneeze on, whatever you do, don't give into the dark side of the force!
