Why Do Men Fall Asleep After Sex? (7 page)
WHY DO MEN NEED TO WEAR A JOCK STRAP? (AND WHY DOES IT HURT SO BAD WHEN YOU GET KICKED IN THE BALLS?)
The testicles are vulnerable little things, just hanging there in the scrotum with nothing protecting them from a vicious kick or punch. The testicles develop inside the abdomen and usually move down into the scrotum before birth. The nerves and blood vessels remain attached even as the testes descend. There is no muscle or bone to cushion a blow. Being covered in nerves adds to the unforgettable pain of getting kicked in the balls. That’s why you feel it in the pit of your stomach when the vicious blow happens.
The jock strap or athletic supporter serves to support the testicles and keep them from flopping around, sort of like a sports bra for your balls. Most importantly, it can hold a hard plastic shell to protect you if you are participating in contact sports.
DO STEROIDS SHRINK YOUR TESTICLES?
You may get big in some places on steroids, but it’s true that other places might get smaller. Anabolic steroids or anabolicandrogenic steroids are synthetic derivatives of the male hormone testosterone. There are many side effects of short- and long-term use of these steroids. Male athletes who use anabolic steroids report increased sexual drive, aggression, acne, and increased body hair. Other attractive effects are reduced sperm count, impotence, breast development, and shrinking of the testicles. Steroid use can be extremely dangerous and can lead to premature heart attacks or strokes.
So if your intention in taking steroids is to look like some sort of Herculean Road Warrior, remember—you just may end up with man-boobs and micro-balls instead.
CHAPTER 4
NO, I’M NOT A VETERINARIAN!
We had
just completed a long couples session and after I had cleaned up the mess of ketchup and pudding that Leyner had smeared all over the walls, we strolled across the park to grab some lunch.
As we were about to cross the street, we noticed an elegantly accoutered woman hovering next to her defecating Doberman, her cupped hand engloved in a blue
New York Times
bag.
Leyner leaped to her side. “Let me get that for you,” he offered gallantly and bare-handed the steaming poop, flinging it into a nearby trash receptacle.
The shocked woman gazed at Leyner with unmistakable affection. “That was remarkable. Bruno never lets anyone near his—” She blushed and averted her eyes. “His…movements. He’s very sensitive about that. You have a way with animals, sir.” She offered her hand for Leyner to kiss. Leyner obliged and offered his. “I’ll pass,” she demurred.
She and the empty-boweled Bruno receded into the distance.
We then chanced upon, seated on a park bench, a man in his midfifties in a frayed thrift-store suit playing chess with a more impeccably dressed chimpanzee, attired in a freshly pressed white shirt and a red bow tie.
We quietly ate our lunch, our eyes riveted to the game of chess which, from my limited knowledge of the game, was being played at an extremely high level.
The man had opened with the classic Ruy Lopez—white king’s pawn to king four, etc., etc., etc. Soon he had control over the center of the board and had placed the chimp’s black queen in a desperately untenable position. The chimp seemed baffled by his predicament, when he noticed Leyner staring him down. He leaped from his seat, rushed toward Leyner, and began to furiously and frantically pick at the hairs on the back of Leyner’s neck.
Leyner embraced the chimp, groomed him with reciprocal affection, and whispered something into his new friend’s ear.
The chimp bounced off Leyner’s lap, returned to the board, and began a focused series of tactically brilliant moves that soon left the man no choice but to resign in stunned and abject defeat.
Putting his iPod headphones back on and cranking up Salt-N-Pepa’s “Push It,” the chimp turned toward Leyner and proudly pumped a victorious fist in the air.
Leyner stood and silently saluted his simian soul mate.
“Leyner…I’m impressed…I’ve never seen this side of you before…. You’re like Dr. Friggin’ Doolittle,” I said.
Leyner acknowledged the compliment with a modest bow of the head. And we returned to the office.
DO ANIMALS COMMIT SUICIDE?
Heaven knows, animals would be completely justified in becoming suicidally depressed. There’s the brutal hierarchy of the food chain out there on the savannah, and the benumbing life of captivity in some squalid zoo where junior high school jocks toss Hot Tamales and Ex-Lax into your cage, or having some goofy owner who insists on dressing you in a little madras doggie vest. It’s all more than enough to make even the perkiest Pollyanna in the animal kingdom want to blow his brains out. But animals don’t really commit suicide, at least not in the way we humans define the term.
Lemmings have traditionally been the poster boys for suicidal animals. But they aren’t as self-destructive as they seem. Lemmings sometimes fall off cliffs during mass migration, but these deaths are accidental rather than intentional. There are several other examples of animals who appear to commit suicide. There’s the mother octopus feeding its young, but not herself. And the Australian crab spider who produces a special batch of eggs too jumbo to be laid—so her hatched spiderlings actually gnaw into her body to consume them, eventually killing poor ol’ Mom. Both of these examples are open to anthropomorphic misinterpretation, but don’t seem to represent suicide as we know it.
Although animals are known to mope, they have never been observed locking themselves in their bedrooms with the blinds drawn, and listening to morose, self-pitying dirges by Leonard Cohen or The Cure for hours on end.
DO DOGS HAVE BELLY BUTTONS?
Dogs are placental mammals and therefore they do have a belly button. That does not make it easy to find. It is there somewhere in all that fur about halfway between the rib cage and the hip bone. While you are looking, feel free to give Rover a little scratch but watch out for the shaking leg.
CAN A COCKROACH GET STUCK IN MY EAR?
Remember when you were told not to put anything bigger than your elbow in your ear? The roaches weren’t listening. It is not uncommon to see patients in the emergency room with cockroaches in their ears. The cockroaches have an easy time crawling in but they aren’t very good at backing out. A moving cockroach in your external ear causes great pain and anxiety. In the ER, we first put mineral oil or Lidocaine (an anesthetic liquid) in the ear to suffocate the trespassing creature. We then employ an “alligator forceps”—a long, thin tweezerlike instrument to pull the intruder out.
HOW DO WE KNOW THAT DOGS ARE COLOR-BLIND?
I imagine it would be very difficult to get the dog to sit still at the eye doctor long enough to find out. So how do we know that dogs are colorblind?
To begin with, they aren’t. They don’t see as many colors as humans, but they do see more than black and white. Dogs have two types of cells on their retina that recognize wavelengths of light, called cones. Humans have three types of cones, so we see more colors. It is likely that dogs confuse reds and greens. This type of vision is similar to humans who are red-green colorblind.
How do we know?
Scientists taught dogs to recognize colors, but they often confused reds and greens. Beams of light were also flashed into dogs’ eyes and the pattern of light that was reflected back was analyzed. These results were then compared with the pattern produced when the same lights were flashed into human eyes.
WHAT DOES A CHIMPANZEE DO WITH THE UMBILICAL CORD AFTER IT HAS A BABY?
Bites it…and probably eats it. Many species of wild mammals (primates, and thus chimps included) conveniently chow down on the umbilical cord, and also eat their placenta. One good reason, in addition to the irresistible availability of a highly nutritious meal, is that quickly disposing of the umbilical cord and placenta protects the newborn offspring from predators that might be attracted to the bloody organs. As far as we
Homo sapiens
go, there are rare (excuse the choice of words) instances of placentophagy (placenta eating) in human society—notwithstanding persistent urban-mythlike tales of pervasive “placenta parties” thrown by hippie earth mothers during the seventies in—where else?—California. Most cultures have specific and strict taboos against this postpartum entree. And that’s probably, as the doyenne of fine dining and all things domestic—Martha Stewart—would say: a good thing.
DO TOADS CAUSE WARTS?
Poor poor toads. They seem to always take a backseat to frogs. Frogs get kissed and turn into princes and toads just get to cause warts. Well, here is some good news for toads. Toads do not cause warts. Toads do, however, produce a substance from the parotid gland behind the eyes to act as protection. This toxin can make other animals very sick if ingested and can be irritating to the eyes. Some people even go way beyond touching toads and will lick them in an attempt to get high from a supposed psychedelic substance on their skin.
A special type of toad, the Bufo toad, does contain a psychedelic substance but it doesn’t cause hallucinations. Be careful because people have been arrested for toad licking.
ARE BULLS REALLY ATTRACTED TO THE COLOR RED?
What would a bullfight be without the red cape? Answer: A bullfight just the same. However, a yellow cape might be more easily stained with blood. Bulls probably do react to a bright color but not specifically to red. The movement of the cape is more key to catching the bull’s attention.
WHY DON’T VULTURES GET SICK FROM EATING ROTTEN MEAT?
You’d think chowing down on rotten carcasses of putrefying, maggot-ridden meat might not be the best thing for a bird (never mind the bad breath it causes). But it doesn’t seem to bother vultures, who dine al fresco on the stuff whenever they get the chance. Granted, they prefer their carrion (that’s dead flesh, not luggage) to be fresh, not festering—although they’re not terribly picky. But vultures do not get sick from eating rotten or diseased meat, even if the dead animal being scarfed down is infected with botulism, cholera, or anthrax. Talk about having a strong stomach! Disease organisms just don’t survive in a vulture’s digestive tract. And that’s not true for other carrion-junkies like hyenas and jackals. Although vultures have an extremely high acid level in their bellies, it’s not known precisely what kills off all the nasty pathogens in this big bird’s iron gut.
(Health Advisory: If you’re feeling especially listless and rundown, and you find that, whenever you step outside, vultures are wheeling over your head, licking their chops, they may know something you don’t know. See a doctor.)
IS A DOG’S MOUTH CLEAN?
Joel Leyner propounded two axiomatic truths for the entirety of his son Mark’s childhood: 1. Someday every single person will possess his or her own helicopter and commute to work in it; and 2. A dog’s mouth is actually cleaner than a person’s. Well, so much for fatherly wisdom. Although Leyner never really bought the helicopter prediction—seemed like too much of a rush-hour nightmare—the dog’s mouth assertion seemed plausible. But the ol’ man was wrong on that score too. When the oral cultures from ten randomly chosen people were compared to samples from the mouths of ten randomly chosen hounds, guess what? The “yuck factor”—that is, bacterial colonies per square centimeter—was greater in the majority of mutt mouths than in the person pie-holes. No wonder Lucy hated it when Snoopy kissed her.
5:16
P.M
.
Gberg:
What’s up, Nipple Brother?
Leyner:
Working on a section for our calendar called Life After Death or Maggot Chow.
Gberg:
I am trying to get some work done on book #2.
Gberg:
The “B” side of our literary record.
Leyner:
Hold on…
Gberg:
We used to feed our dog maggot chow.
Leyner:
That’s funny…wait, I’m finishing this thing…
5:20
P.M
.
Gberg:
I am doing some research for the book. Did I tell you that Carrie wants the book earlier if possible?
Leyner:
We all agreed on March 1.
5:25
P.M
.
Gberg:
She said if possible.
Leyner:
Tell her to stick her head in an autoclave.
Gberg:
Absolutely.
Leyner:
Well, all right then.
DO RATS CAUSE RABIES?
Rats have such an undeservedly bad image. Rats are rarely, if ever, infected with rabies, and have never been known to cause rabies among humans in the United States. Woodchucks are far more prone to be infected than rats, and raccoons are the most common wild animals to have rabies. As far as the transmission of human rabies is concerned, bats have been responsible for almost 75 percent of rabies cases since 1990.
So let’s lighten up on the rats, okay? It’s so unfair. People are still blaming rats for the Black Death (the bubonic plague epidemic that killed 20 million victims in fourteenth-century Europe), when it was actually the fleas that lived on the rats fault (
Xenopsylla cheopis,
to be exact).
In an effort to rehabilitate the reputation of the rat, here’s a list of our favorite rat songs:
“Eat That Rat” by The Ramones
“Rats” by Pearl Jam
“Rats in the Cellar” by Aerosmith
Anything by the bands Ratt or the Boomtown Rats
And, of course, the GREATEST rat song ever: “Ben” by Michael Jackson