The Mustache Donor

There are many elective medical procedures that I do not understand (cosmetic nipple removal comes to mind) but one of the strangest has taken hold in the Middle East: mustache transplantation. One Turkish surgeon, who claims to perform 50-60 of these a month, says that the majority of his clients are unhappy with their anemic facial hair and wish to project more masculinity. Many of the clients are politicians who believe that a thicker mustache will assist them in appealing to voters.

The procedure, which costs around $7,000, uses a technique called follicular unit extraction to remove hair from a “donor site” and implant it on the patient’s top lip. They cannot shave for several weeks and it generally takes about six months to see the full results. Once enough time has passed, practitioners insist that the relocated hair is indistinguishable from cookie-duster natives. The trend appears to be growing and is now being performed in France as well.

I am privileged to have a mustachioed co-worker who takes great pride in his soup-strainer and is even a member of the American Mustache Association (AMA). While I admire his dedication, I am not willing to separate myself from $7,000 in order to replicate it. Genetically speaking, I am predisposed to an asymmetrical “dirty stache” which does nothing to enhance my masculinity. Fortunately, my wife is not a fan of facial hair (or masculinity) so we are perfectly suited for one another.

My main concern would be the surgeon’s ambiguity concerning the “donor site.” If the hair was harvested from the patient’s scalp I can only assume they would have revealed that in the article. This leaves precious few other areas from which to deport the needed man-fur and given the coarse nature of male facial hair I fear the entire discussion would go south very quickly. Is there a contingency plan if the newly-created mustache begins to curl uncontrollably?

While Americans also associate facial hair with masculinity, some social scientists have argued that a clean-shaven political candidate in America has a better shot than their fuzzy counterparts because people associate facial hair with deception. This is ironic given Abraham Lincoln’s reputation and the fact that we have elected several mustachioed presidents. Furthermore, Chester Arthur rocked the mutton chops and rumor has it that Harry Truman sported a short-lived goatee while relaxing in Key West in 1948.

The real breakthrough will come when they can fully transplant someone else’s facial hair onto your body. If God didn’t see fit to put attractive hair on your face, chances are there is nothing better hiding behind the curtains. In cases such as this, the person could walk into the surgeon’s office and ask for the “Chuck Norris” or the “Sam Elliott” confident that they were receiving the finest in facial accoutrements. The patient could even be given large doses of testosterone and un-tenderized beef to prevent post-operative rejection.   

Like most things men do, this craze is probably related to money, power, or potential mates. I just do not see how spending money to relocate a half-acre of back-hair to your lip makes you electable or dateable. I imagine that there are several attributes women (and voters) find more attractive than a fauxstauche and I'll bet the ability to wisely spend $7,000 is one of them.

Dr. Feelgood

An interesting legal case has surfaced in Fort Dodge, Iowa and concerns a dentist named James Knight and his assistant of ten years Melissa Nelson. Despite her stellar work record, Mr. Knight fired Mrs. Nelson because he found her “irresistibly attractive” and feared that her continued employment posed a significant threat to his marriage. The termination came after Dr. Knight’s wife (also employed at his office) found text messages between the two she felt would lead to her husband’s infidelity. After receiving the blessing of his pastor, Dr. Knight fired Mrs. Nelson and provided her with a 1-month severance package.

Mrs. Nelson, who denies any flirting or impropriety of any kind, filed suit against Knight for gender discrimination and it went to the Iowa Supreme Court where the all-male panel unanimously upheld her firing. They reasoned that since Nelson was replaced by another female employee, no gender discrimination took place. They found that Dr. Knight’s actions were motivated by the preservation of his marriage and this, in and of itself, does not violate state law.

Dr. Knight

During the proceedings, Dr. Knight accused Mrs. Nelson of wearing clothing that was “too tight” but she insists she only ever wore standard scrubs. Dr. Knight also admitted to remarking that Mrs. Nelson would know her outfit was too tight when she noticed that his “pants were bulging.” Court documents also revealed that the doctor had sent her a sexually-themed text message and allegedly advised her that an infrequent sex life for her would be “like having a Lamborghini in the garage and never driving it.”

Despite the case details, Nelson did not allege sexually harassment because she did not feel like his comments had particularly offended her. Her attorney sees the decision as a setback for women in the workplace, remarking that the implications of the ruling are that women should somehow be held responsible for their male employer’s sexual desires. Since her termination, Mrs. Nelson has been working as a waitress and has no plans to pursue her lawsuit any further.

There are many things wrong with this picture, and while I applaud Mr. Knight’s commitment to monogamy, I do not think it would have been too much to ask for him to secure her another job with a colleague since she had been a stellar employee for over a decade. She wasn’t fired because she was hot; she was fired because his wife discovered that he thought she was hot. Say what you will about the pharmaceutical industry, but no one has ever accused them of letting a representative go for being overwhelmingly comely.

What I cannot understand is why she did not allege sexual harassment. There can only be two explanations for this and both of them are disturbing:

1.      Dr. Knight had created a workplace so saturated with sexual innuendos and double entendres that by comparison his comments and text messages to Mrs. Nelson were borderline respectful.

2.       Mrs. Nelson at least passively reciprocated his interest.

While it is possible that Mrs. Nelson enjoyed and perhaps even encouraged these advances, my bet is on the former possibility. She probably viewed him as a harmless flirt who stood between her and a career in waitressing and therefore was willing to overlook the occasional automobile metaphor. If this is true, her biggest mistake was giving him too much leeway.

Let me tell you something,  if your workplace dress code is solely contingent upon the prominence of your supervisor’s “trouser bulge” it could be time to retain legal counsel and update your resume. Furthermore, I don’t know that any of his female patients will feel comfortable with Dr. Protrusion putting them under for a root canal after hearing this.

I can sympathize with Dr. Knight’s wife for acting in the best interest of her marriage, but if your husband feels that comfortable discussing the current status of his crotch with a female subordinate, trading one young woman for another may just be treating the symptom.  Also, if it took ten years of workplace gestation for a colleague to become suddenly “irresistible” to your husband, it either takes a really long time for her to come out of her shell or it had taken nine and a half years for him to work his way through the entire hygienist rotation and start hitting on her.

This is also a reason I do not envy pastors. Can you imagine this conversation?

“Reverend, my wife and I feel it would be best for our marriage if I fire a loyal, hardworking employee simply because she has the misfortune of looking attractive in a set of neutrally-colored scrubs. This attribute could conceivably lead to an extramarital affair if there was any reason to believe she shared my sentiments. Therefore, I am afraid the only prudent course of action would be to abruptly terminate her family’s source of income. What do you think?”

“Did you address your concerns with the employee in question in order to provide her an opportunity to alter her wardrobe to something less appealing or arrange for a transfer to another dental practitioner?”

“Well father, I did tell her she made me happy in my pants.”

“I see……..”

This must be quite a mixed bag for Mr. Nelson. Their household income was significantly reduced by her termination but he is also one of the few guys at work who can tell his friends that his wife was let go due to “excessive hotness.” At least working as a waitress will keep her safe from the unwanted advances of older men....

The Bieber Threat

In a world fraught with senseless violence and a callous disregard for the suffering of our fellow man, I was reassured by a glimmer of hope when I read about the foiling of a murder plot against Justin Bieber. According to published reports the homicide was masterminded from behind bars by Dana Martin, who is currently serving a life sentence for the rape and murder of a 15 year old girl in Vermont and has a tattoo of Justin Bieber on his leg. Once his plan had taken shape, Dana recruited former prison alumnus Mark Staake who in turn recruited his nephew Tanner Ruane.

The plot was for Mark and Tanner to gain access to Bieber at his Madison Square Garden concert, strangle the singer and his bodyguard with a “paisley neck-tie,” and then castrate both of them with a set of pruning shears. After experiencing an apparent change of heart, Dana turned in his accomplices to the authorities who managed to apprehend both of them before they made an attempt on Bieber’s life (or man-bits).

Bieber & Canada's Prime Minister

While I am sure Mark and Tanner feel blindsided by the betrayal of their ringleader there were a few subtle clues that he might not be a picture of mental stability, not the least of which is the fact that he is serving a life sentence for the rape and murder of an underage girl. Maybe it’s how I was raised, but when a person asks you to neutralize someone they have tattooed on their leg it is always best to walk away. How did Dana bring this up? Did Mark come during visiting hours to shoot the breeze?

“Hey man, how’s the outside?”

“Good brother, how are you holdin’ up?”

“Pretty good I guess. Listen Mark, I was wondering if you would be willing to utilize your newfound freedom to facilitate the murder and castration of a Canadian pop-star for no reason other than my own cyclical feelings of repulsion / adoration.”

“Go on…….”

It appears that the use of the necktie was as symbolic as it was fashionable. Apparently Mr. Martin had used it in the commission of previous crimes and wished to continue his legacy. Some would argue that there is only one other way this story could have ended and the headline would have read: Two creepy grown men beaten unconscious while attempting to present Justin Bieber with a retro tie. The only conversation more perplexing that the initial Dana / Mark conversation it would have to be when Mark recruited his nephew and convinced him to participate:

“Hey Tanner! It’s your Uncle Mark!”

“Hey Uncle, what’s going on?”

“I was wondering if you mind helping me out with a project for a buddy of mine. He would do it himself but he is currently serving time for a violent felony perpetrated against a minor and a caveat of his mental state involves an unhealthy fascination with Justin Bieber whom he wishes us to assault, murder, and castrate armed with nothing more than a garden tool and a used necktie.”

“Go on……”

I was also unable to understand why the bodyguard had to be castrated too. I can only assume that the point of the castration was to degrade and humiliate the guard. This goal would have been easily accomplished by managing to isolate and strangle his employer with an article of clothing at Madison Square Garden. The disfiguring of his corpse would just seem superfluous at that point. 

All joking aside, this is the second credible threat against Mr. Bieber’s life in as many years, and in the interest of his own safety I feel the most prudent course of action would be a comprehensive retreat from public life. I realize such a drastic step would make it impossible to release music, conduct interviews, or star in self-promotional compilations disguised as “motion picture events,” but nothing is worth the compromise of his personal safety. Don’t be a hero Justin, you have already provided the world with more than enough material and the time has come for you to take a knee and let your admirers rest easy in the knowledge that their beloved Canadian icon did not allow himself to be transformed into a meticulously-coiffed martyr.

Flu Shots

This year will mark the first time I have ever received a flu vaccine and I only did so because it was recommended by our doctor as a way to protect our as-yet-unborn son. While my trepidation concerning influenza vaccination is hard to explain, it is not derived from a lack fear. I had a full-blown case a few years ago and it took the combined effort of two boxes of Tamiflu, ten days on the couch, and a member of the Lutheran clergy to relinquish its hold on me. Things looked so grim that I was afraid my wife was going to change her Facebook relationship status and start dating again.

I also understand the sound logic behind herd immunity (the idea that once you immunize north of 80% of the population the other 20% are protected by default) but I still cannot shake the perhaps irrational fear that we are coddling our immune systems. There are even some who believe mass immunization is forcing the mutations responsible for the virus’s continued prevalence. While I do not believe we possess the empirical evidence necessary to make that determination, we do know that some of the deadliest flu pandemics occurred when a new strain of the virus made the jump from animals to humans. The inaccurately-christened “Spanish Flu” pandemic of 1918 infected one-third of the world’s population and is estimated to have killed more than twenty million people making it comparable to the Black Death.

Strangely enough, those most vulnerable to this strain were young, healthy adults. One study places 99% of the United States fatalities occurring in those under the age of 65. One theory is that the virus caused an overreaction of the host immune system which would explain why the strongest immune systems proved to be the biggest liability. Others point to the fact that many of those over 65 in 1918 would have been exposed to the Russian flu pandemic of 1889 and therefore developed a resistance to closely-related superbugs.  In either case, there were no vaccines in place to force these mutations so in many ways their existence remains a mystery.

This leads us to the plight of hospital workers. Many states, like Connecticut, have seen hospital employees terminated for refusing to get the flu shot. If the employees do not qualify for a medical or religious exemption, they are placed on unpaid leave or permanently replaced. This has caused some heated disagreements concerning whether or not an employer should be able to fire an otherwise competent employee for not receiving an injection.

Certainly those working in acute care facilities have a greater responsibility to guard themselves against infectious disease than, say, a forklift operator, but how far should the employer go to coerce that person into healthy habits?  Should they fire obese smokers or people who date Brett Michaels just because their lifestyles could lead to communicable diseases? On the other hand, they provide religious and medical exemptions so what possible excuse could the holdouts have? We ask the surgeon to wash their hands, this is not much different.

In the name of tempering personal freedom and public responsibility, I have devised a solution: cash money. Each employee that voluntarily receives a flu shot will be entitled to a one-time bonus of $250 and if for some reason they still miss work because of the flu, the sick days that they use to recover will not count against them. This provides a tangible, monetary incentive for compliance while reassuring the employee that their company did not save money by injecting them with a placebo. I imagine those with religious objections will renounce them and those medically exempt will earn their $250 by publicly ridiculing non-participants until they comply.

Currently, the CDC recommends that children be vaccinated against sixteen different maladies from chicken pox to mumps and there has been blowback from a minority of parents who feel all of these vaccinations are leading to other conditions such as autism. What the medical establishment is forgetting is that the only thing America hates more than a preventable tragedy is being forced to take steps to prevent a tragedy.

That is why the CDC needs to create better titles for these diseases that terrify the populace into making the right choice. Let’s be honest, “Rubella” sounds like an Eastern European exotic dancer and “mumps” sounds like a second tier Muppet character. It is difficult to frighten people into submitting themselves to injections if they are not properly frightened.  I can guarantee it would not take much arm twisting to convince Bill from marketing that he needs to take precautions against “Black Death” or “typhoid fever” since the name alone conveys the proper sense of impending doom.