What you need to know about STD’s
Fred Kusack

Carefully knocking and pushing open the highly polished mahogany door sanctum, I groveled forward in as realistic caricature of the obedient journalist as I could manage, sinking into the luxurious carpet as I did so.  Rich tapestries, portraying scenes that could be interpreted as being either the Rape of the Sabine Women, or the different stages of some of the more odious diseases, lined the paneled walls.  The editor, for it was he who had summoned me, lay on a velvet couch surrounded by lissome young ladies who appeared to be clad in some form of diaphanous operating room scrubs.  Two sat by his head, one peeling grapes and the other placing them upon his tongue as he slavered and drooled.  A third stood nearby, gently waving what appeared to be a particularly large leaf recently removed from a banana plant.  The movement of the air that resulted was complimented by the swaying of her form, and what a compliment it was.  It was she who addressed me.

“The editor wants a thousand words from you by midnight” she tinkled.  “The editor wants you to be sure to make many of them different.”

I gulped.  “Does the editor have a particular subject in mind?” addressing no one in particular, I enquired.

Again the tinkling.  “The editor wishes to have something about sexually transmitted diseases,” came the reply.  “Tell us something we didn’t know.”

“But that’s not possible,” I cried.  “Aficionados of our organ come from the Keck School of Medicine.  They already know everything that is to be known.”

“Perhaps you’d prefer to do a little scut-work on the wards?” I heard in reply.  Crestfallen, I knew I was beaten.  What could be worse than scut-work?  I waited, but without expectation.  The silence was broken only by the gentle swishing of the banana leaf as it undulated through the air.  Finally I could stand it no longer.  Backing towards the door, tugging at my forelock as I went and taking care to keep my eyes averted, I removed myself from the magisterial editorial presence.  “Now what?” I thought as I trudged back to my garret through the snow.  Clearly, only one thing for it.  So, offered as a public service for those to whom our delicate, shell pink emerging little organ actually means something, and also to keep one more poor soul free of the dreaded scut-work:

 ! SEXUALLY TRANSMITTED DISEASES !  (Rated pg-17) 

Perhaps the most important thing to be learned about sexually transmitted diseases is never to get one.  It is widely accepted in the medical community that to become afflicted with one of these scourges of the procreative activities can seldom be considered a good thing, or even a halfway decent thing.  To avoid getting one, education in their recognition and classification must be considered essential, and the earlier this begins in life the better.  What better place, then, to begin studies than in the home? Fond remembrances of my own early research in this area flood over me as I write. My dearly beloved papa was the source of so much of my early learning.  One spring day, suffused with the joys of the season and the newly-found pleasures of playing doctor with one or two (or four) of my closest little girlfriends at school, I crept onto his lap and whispered “ Father dear, what are sexually transmitted diseases?”

“Shut up,” he explained, and my heart swelled with joy.

Being sixteen at the time the swelling of certain parts of the anatomy had become no surprise to me, and so far had proven to be nothing but pleasurable.  It was only later that this was recognized by an astute psychiatric consultant as being among the earliest signs of a masochistic disorder, which even today manifests itself in a manner that would have Celsus dancing with joy as he counted off his cardinal signs.  But, I digress. It is important to understand that not everything that sounds like a sexually transmitted disease is actually classified as such.  Among those commonly misinterpreted are such entities as:

·       Grape nuts – despite the descriptive nature of the term, these are associated neither with actual grapes nor actual testicles.  They are, in fact, a relatively harmless processed food usually eaten at breakfast.  Which description, in itself, does not necessarily preclude similar activities with either grapes or testes, but simply makes them less likely.

·       Poverty – not a disease as such, unless one is actually suffering from it, and not exclusively associated with sexual activity.  But there’s sure a major connection in many parts of the world, most agree.

Hypertrichomanus syndrome – the full-blown syndrome, including hair growth on the palms of the hands, deafness, failing sight and loss of mental acuity is now known to be a phenomenon strictly linked to the Y chromosome.  It is universally understood that nice girls don’t come down with this disease.

The manner by which the spread of the sexually transmitted diseases is achieved has remained a mystery throughout most of recorded history.  Among the possibilities which may be offered by patients at a typical clinic can often be heard the following:

·       From sitting on a toilet seat – quite possibly so, but a most uncomfortable place to spend one’s time if one has an alternative.

·       From kissing a member of the opposite gender – again possibly so, which reinforces the basic adage of looking the member straight in the eye before one leaps.

From kicking a football – by no stretch of the imagination can it be conceived.

We are fortunate in today’s world that there exists an experimental animal to help us explore the mysteries of the spread of at least one sexually transmitted disease.  The koala is a small, essentially defenseless, loveable cuddly beast in which infections with Chlamydia thrive.  They can’t run very fast, don’t make much more noise than a grunt, and require only a few eucalyptus leaves a day on which to thrive.  Training them to kick a football may require some degree of effort, and sitting them on toilet seats may require redesign of the porcelain, but doubtless it could be done.  Nothing, after all, is beyond the abilities of the Keck M.D./PhD contingent.  How can we not become a TOP 10 SCHOOL?

Oh dear – I see from my chronometer that it’s the hour that Jay Leno refers to as Michael Jackson’s bedtime, when the big hand is on the little hand.  This also means that the 1000 word allotment has now been exceeded, and that the editor is now likely to cut this article in mid-word even befo