Pay No Attention to the Man Behind the Curtain

“Doctor Doctor! My blood pressure meds are killing me!”

“Well, Ma’am, actually your blood pressure was killing you.”

“Doctor Doctor! I don’t need the Prozac anymore! I’m eating tree bark instead!”

“Well, Ma’am, since you sadly and ineffectively tried to kill yourself overdosing on Gas-X last month, I think we should stick with the Prozac.”

“Doctor Doctor! My poop…

“AHA! Say no more! I know what’s wrong with you!”

“You do????”

“Dr. Oz-O-Chondria." 

          I’m not sure what is more disconcerting: the fact that Dr. Oz was once (and may still be) a practicing cardiovascular surgeon, or the number of people he now has access to being a nationally televised talk show host. If you have never seen his show, DEAR GOD, keep it that way. I generally don’t watch talk shows, partly because they are on during the day, and partly because I know if it’s not Jerry Springer it won’t have my kind of excitement.

            Wednesdays are my days for ultimate self-destruction at the gym. So, it only seems apropos that Dr. Oz would be on during my 45 minutes of elliptical vengeance to cherry top my workout. If men are from Mars and women are from Venus, Dr. Oz is sailing away from reality on the Hubble Telescope hoping to have lunch with Mork and Mindy. Nanoo Nanoo. Oz has to have broken the record for televised dramatizations using giant acrylic feces. Even worse, he’s convincing people that their doctors think they are crazy and are causing them more harm than good. Like in any profession, there are some subpar physicians walking the earth. And occasionally you may have the experience that a doctor thinks you are nuts. Well, if you go to your doctor spouting most of the weird things said on the Dr. Oz show, you probably ARE crazy. And if you’re not, don’t listen to Dr. Oz! Get another doctor!

            Have you seen his “scientific” demonstrations? A couple of weeks ago I learned that if I tie some red yarn to the back of my eyeball and set it on fire, and it burns slowly, then I can read in the dark. Another demonstration shows that if I poke a hole in my head with something sharp and there is a brain aneurysm underneath it, it will pop.  And yet another show demonstrated that if I put on mittens in the morning, then soak my mitten covered hands in ice water, and finish by rubbing my arms with these icy cold wet mittens, it will give me more energy. “You can quote me. The man is a FRUITCAKE,” says RN Elizabeth Arsenault.

            This past Wednesday morning he assured me that it is not harmful to eat the boogers you pick out of your nose. (He clearly didn’t take into account the social ramifications of that act.) Of course it was accompanied with another dramatization: he reached up into the nostril of a five foot high nose and pulled out green goop and licked it off his hand. I wish I had had a camera to record the nauseated looks on the other people exercising around me. This particular episode got so bad I actually had to stare at the floor to keep from revisiting the chocolate chip muffin I ate for breakfast.            

I can just picture him pint sized and singing, “We represent the lollipop kids!” and welcoming me to Munchkin Land. I really wish that is where he would stay.