by Roger White
Viewer warning: For those of you with weak stomachs, strong senses of ick, or those curmudgeonly few who are simply hard of smiling, this column may offend, disgust, bother, or downright nauseate. But it’s all true! And in my ever-vigilant quest for truth, justice, and the Appian Way, this seeker of genuine morsels of weird shall not be censored. Unless, of course, my editor nixed this whole idea—in which case you’re not reading this. Hmm. So if a columnist writes an article in the forest and nobody reads it, did he really write anything? Woah. Slow down, man, I think I’m gonna hurl.
So anyway, I read in my local newspaper here that some people, I don’t know how many so don’t start screaming yet, are keeping their leftover placentas in the freezer for later use. No sirree, I did not slip and hit my head on the wet kitchen floor caused by the dog licking at pools of Diet Pepsi, which was spilled by my daughter, who was playing spaghetti games with our emotionally challenged cat at the dinner table. I am not deranged; this statement is true because I read it in the paper. And as we all know, if it’s in the newspaper, it must be true.
First off, I have no earthly idea why the adjective “leftover” was stuck in front of the noun “placenta,” and I also cannot possibly conceive what sort of “later use” they may be referring to.
So let’s read on, shall we? “Our clients are more and more asking to take their placentas home because it’s a part of their body, and it’s theirs,” the owner of a local birthing center said. I’d like to insert here that as a card-carrying AARP member, I am unashamed to say that I recently had hemorrhoid surgery, and though it was my body, and those were my parts, I laid absolutely no claim to them when all was said and done. The birthing center woman goes on to say that there are dozens of uses for the placentas, including eating them.
The article notes that although most medical groups do not endorse dining on human placenta, folks who cart their placentas home swear by the nutritional value of this spongy treat—particularly encapsulated placenta, which is, as we are all aware, dried, cured, and crammed into tiny little capsules like so many cold and flu pills.
Sometimes, I get lucky and this column practically writes itself, know what I mean?
Dozens of other uses for the placenta? Let’s not go there. Oh, what the heck, I have some more space to fill. Well, for starters, how about an indoor Frisbee? Except good luck ever getting the thing away from the cat once he snags it and high-tails it under the kitchen table. If your neighborhood softball team is thinking of ways of going green, it could make a nifty organic catcher’s mitt. All right, that’s enough. It’s almost lunch time.
Now, as positively grossed out as you may be (and it’s perfectly okay if you are because I still have goose pimples and the jimmy-leg as I’m writing this—ewwww), this sort of thing is nothing new. In fact, folks have been toting home and putting to use all manner of body parts from surgery that were originally destined for that big bio-hazard dump site near Amarillo that nobody wants to talk about. Don’t ask. I can’t talk about it.
For example, a guy in Scranton, Pennsylvania, finally relented to his wife’s wishes and had that delicate operation performed that many boys have done when they are first born. You know. A little off the top, in what the Jewish faith call the practice of Brit milah, or the bris. In keeping with our take-home trend discussed above, this guy now has a nice patio umbrella for his hamster, Rodney.
A housewife in Scottsdale who suffered through years of chronic gallstones now fashions wonderful necklaces and sells them out of her roadside trailer. She uses a strong lacquer finish, so the smell is generally neutral. Yes.
I had a couple more paragraphs here on facial hair and toenails, but my editor keeps hitting me in the back of the head with these sharp, tiny little objects. Cut it out, man!
Well, I warned you at the beginning, didn’t I? I gave second, third, and even fourth thoughts about this one, but who am I to put a lamp shade on the truth? Speaking of lamp shades, this one has an odd texture about it. Oh, MY—
Roger White is a freelance writer living in Austin, Texas, with his lovely wife, two precocious daughters, a very fat daschund, and a self-absorbed cat. For further adventures, visit oldspouse.wordpress.com.
oldspouse 
Clang the Clangers! It’s Contest Time Again!
23 Junby Roger White
Either I’m having a patella-buckling, spleen-expanding, koala-slapping case of déjà vu, or I’ve written all this before and am now simply too addled to recognize it, but here goes: You know how sometimes the gods smile upon you. Yah? True, somet
imes they do. This is when things somehow turn out OK despite your astounding lack of common sense. Sometimes, however, they just grin and chuckle, leaving you to fend for yourself. They are amused at your puny efforts.
And yet other times, the gods smirk or give you that blank stare like you really screwed things up.
My advice for these times is just to act like you truly intended the outcome, no matter how calamitous. This gives the gods pause, and that brief delay in the Great Spinning Wheel of Fate (GSWoF) often provides that slim window of time in
which you have a certain measure of self-determination. Like that time you were second string on the seventh-grade football team, and the coach was trying to decide whether to let you in the game just before halftime and in your excitement you simply ran out onto the field and got to play two whole plays before coach yelled at you to sit down and quit acting foolish.
Kinda like that.
This is to say that I believe the big guys are smiling at present, because just in time for the Third Biennial Oldspouse Familiar Phrase Contest (OFPhC) I have received another supply of premium glossy bumper stickers as prizes, you lucky ducks. That’s ducks, with a “d.”
For those too young, old, sensible, or hirsute to remember, the OFPhC involves a pile of phrases, quotes, movie lines, book titles, common sayings, utterances, and/or bodily function noises that I’ve rendered in a somewhat obscure manner. Your job, should you decide to accept it, is to come up with the more common version of said utterances. For example, say I give you “A Male Homosapiens For All Periods of the Year.” You say—… oh, come on. You say, “A Man For All Seasons.” Bingo! See how easy?
First three humans (I will accept cats, too) to respond at roger.white@tasb.org with the correct answers each wins a premium glossy bumper sticker (sorry, the “Ronald Reagan for Governor” ones are all gone—you get “Jesus is Coming. Hide the Bong”). And you get your name in the Gazette! Pseudonyms are fine.
Exciting, huh? OK, ready and. Go. What are the more well-known versions of these sayings:
Roger White is a freelance bivalve mollusk living in Austin, Texas, with his lovely female spouse, two precocious offspring units, a very obese dachshund, and a cat with Epstein-Barr. For further adventures, visit oldspouse.wordpress.com. Or not.
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