My brain and I are no longer on speaking terms. He’s given me the central nervous system equivalent of a sharp kick in the shin. Or to put it another way, if he were my roommate he would have just stolen the last piece of my birthday cake from the refrigerator. I’m quite put out, and refuse to have anything to do with him.
I used to rely on my brain’s unfailing companionship. He figured tips, and he remembered who Archimedes was, and he knew how to spell “eviscerate”. He once took over and completed a 3 ½ hour essay final exam on Differential Mortality, Gender, and Agrarian Economics while I looked at the cute girl by the window. That was real friendship. He even got an A.
But it hasn’t all been marshmallows and kittens. My brain has occasionally led me astray, like the time he said, “I’m 19 and smart enough already—who needs to finish college?” (That one was fairly painful to fix.) Or that time he said, “Three months is plenty of time to get to know each other—go ahead and get married!” (That one was extremely painful to fix.) He tends to approach all problems with an A + B = C mentality, and I suspect that’s not always the best choice.
So for a while my friend the brain has been yanking me around, as he sometimes has done in the past. I don’t know where the hell he goes at night, but during the day he walks around all the time with some kind of freaky hangover, which is pretty annoying. Don’t get me wrong, I understand that brains get a little weird when your body produces a smidge too much of something or other, or when things get out of whack in the lobes, or sometimes really for no reason at all. But there’s only so long you can go with your brain making you act like a crazy man before you say a dignified, “Enough.”
I’m not positive what my brain has to say at this point, because we’ve only been communicating through my thyroid. For example, I’ll say to my thyroid, “Hey, ask my brain how to calculate the distribution of a chi square test,” and the thyroid will come back a little later and say, “Your brain answered, but it was just a bunch of squiggly symbols I don’t understand. How about some extra hormones instead?” That’s not as helpful as I might wish.
I am now accepting applications from other organs interested in replacing my brain. I imagine there will be many fine candidates, because the job of brain is pretty prestigious, the hours are good, and you get excellent access to the eyes in case anything interesting comes on TV. I might even solicit an organ or two to get the process rolling. Is the uvula an organ? I’m not sure because I’m no longer talking to my brain. But it’s welcome to send me a resume anyway.
