I’m sure you’ve heard it said before that laughter is the best medicine. If you Google laughter and medical care, you’ll find lots of articles supporting that premise. There are also lots of projected benefits of laughter. So, assuming that laughter is the best medicine, how should it be taken? Over the years, I have used laughter on multiple occasions to lighten the mood, lessen the pain, and relax the patient. I even had one patient who called me prior to every yearly pelvic to remind me that I needed to put together new material for her exam as the humor lessened the stress of the physical by keeping her laughing during the pelvic exam.
Those of you who were my patients know that my sense of humor is often off color and that I freely use sexual innuendo to get a laugh. While my colleagues might think my use of off-color humor is unprofessional, I found that I got better results with raunchy humor than I did with clean humor. It would be interesting to do some research as to my raunchy humor outperforming clean innocent humor; but, at this stage in life, I’m beyond research and more into practicality.
I have provided a joke at the end of almost every article as I believe that the proper dosing of humor to promote wellness is at least daily and probably twice daily (depending on how raunchy the joke is). Fart humor is probably the strongest of all humor. At the front of the office (in the checkout area), we had two chairs where we usually put pharmaceutical reps waiting to see me. For years, one of those chairs had a remote-control fart machine taped to the bottom of the seat.
There was a manager who we really didn’t like. He often took over his rep’s conversation, stepping on the rep’s toes and pushing medication on the medical staff. Pharma reps who came to my office knew that the last thing they wanted to do was try to push their pills. Their job was to present the science behind their product. Mine was to decide if the benefits outweighed the risks and expenses.
So, one day,
we sat him in the chair with the remote -control fart machine. I had just finished up with an 82-year-old female patient of mine (who had a great sense of humor) and was happy to play along with us. She went to the desk to check out at which time I pushed the button creating one loud fart. She looked at the manager scornfully and proceeded to finish checking out. I hit the button the second time causing the sales Rep to stand up and leave and the old lady to turn to the manager and pronounce how disgusting that was and then leave as well. My patient was marvelous. She maintained herself well and didn’t start laughing until she got out the front door. The sales Rep realized what had happened and started laughing as he walked out the front door as well. The manager was dumbfounded not having any idea what happened to him and never came back to the office. Even today, I smile when I remember this episode.
Remote control fart machines are inexpensive and a great source of healthy laughter. I highly recommend buying one and using it freely. I think that if you do, you will find that you feel much better, smile more often, and giggle from time to time. Actually, I think giggling is better than laughing.
So, here is today’s joke:
An old couple were sitting in Church and the wife noticed that people were staring at her.
She leaned across to her husband and whispered, “I’ve just let go a silent fart. What do you think I should do?”
He said, “I think you should get fresh batteries for your hearing aid.”
