Trained medical personnel detect illness or other bodily problems by looking for “symptoms,” the major ones being these:

Aches Pains A total absence of aches or pains Bullet holes A feeling of not keeping up with inflation A leg bone sticking out through the skin Never having the correct change A stoppage of heart or brain activity Irritability

Get in the habit of checking yourself every 20 minutes or so for these symptoms. When you notice one, you should immediately follow this emergency procedure:

1. Take two pills containing a Scientifically Proven Painkilling Formula that has been advertised on television by a reliable avuncular spokesperson such as Robert Young.

2. Phone your office to tell them that you won’t be in for several days and could somebody please remember to discard any interoffice memoranda aimed at you. If you have no office, you should phone your mother and have her confirm that there is definitely Something Going Around.

This course of treatment will cure you most of the time. If it doesn’t, you probably have a serious illness, which means you should call your physician’s answering service and make an appointment to go into his office the following month and sit in the waiting room for an hour and 45 minutes reading National Geographic. If that doesn’t work, you should go to a hospital emergency ward and inflict a gunshot wound on yourself, thus increasing the odds that you will see an actual doctor to nearly 40 percent.

To get the most out of a doctor, you have to understand how he perceives the world, which is best summed up by the last sentence of the Hippocratic Oath:

“AND ABOVE ALL, REMEMBER THAT THE PATIENT HAS NABISCO BRAND SHREDDED WHEAT FOR BRAINS.”

Yes, doctors tend to feel just a tad superior to the general public, but this is understandable. Doctors are generally smart people, the kind who were attending meetings of the National Honor Society while you were leaning out the study hall window seeing if you could spit on passing nuns. In college and medical school, doctors spend years associating with other smart people and learning complicated things like the location of the pituitary gland. When they get out, the last thing they feel like doing is consorting with a bunch of cretin patients, who not only have no idea where the pituitary gland is, but also are often sick besides.

So the important rule to remember when you’re dealing with a doctor is this: never tell him what you think the problem is, even if you’re absolutely certain. If you tell him what you think, he’ll become irritated and go out of his way to prove you’re wrong:

YOU: Doctor, I think I have suffered a knife wound to the stomach.

DOCTOR (sneering): Oh you do, do you? And what makes you think that?

YOU: Well, several hostile urban youths accosted me on the street and stuck a knife in my stomach. See? Here’s the knife handle, sticking out of my stomach.

DOCTOR (examining your foot): That could be caused by any number of conditions, such as an amalgamation of the pyloric valve or an interdiction of the right epistolary oracle. I’m going to send you to the hospital for some tests next week.

The phrase “send you to the hospital for some tests” is medical code for “drain all the blood out of your body.” Blood removal is the primary form of health care in the United States, and it has been ever since April 4, 1906, when the founder of the Mayo Clinic, Dr. Ted Clinic, happened to be cutting open diseased woodland creatures, as was his wont, and made an amazing discovery: all of the creatures contained blood. He concluded that blood must be a leading cause of disease, which is why today when you go into the hospital, various personnel are always lunging at you with needles. They are very conscientious about this because they don’t want to get a nasty note from the doctor (“3 P.M.—Patient still contains traces of blood! Let’s not let this happen again”).

If blood removal doesn’t work, they start taking out your organs. Usually they start with organs you have two of, such as kidneys, then move up to the really vital ones, so it’s very important that you convince the doctor you’re getting better while you still have a chance to survive:

DOCTOR: So! How are we feeling today?

YOU (hastily): Fine! Great! Never felt better!

DOCTOR (frowning at your chart): Really? Are you sure? Because I see by your chart here that you still have several organs left, and we could ...

YOU (staggering out of bed, trailing intravenous tubes): No! No! Look! I feel terrific! (You attempt a deep knee bend, then collapse in agony.)

DOCTOR: Okay, but I’ll be back to check on you in an hour.

Always examine your hospital bill closely. It should look like this:

Aspirin tablet.

$11.05

Little Dixie cup for water to wash aspirin tablet down with

6.80

Water

31.80

Removal of childproof cap from aspirin bottle (Dr. Viewfinder)

460.00

Removal of little tuft of cotton from aspirin bottle (Dr. Beaner)

385.00

CAT scan from when Dr. Spinnaker thought he might have heard a little whistling noise in the patient’s chest that was probably nothing but You Always Want to Be Sure about These Things

87,354.50

Consultation among Dr. Spinnaker, Dr. Viewfinder, Dr. Beaner, Dr. Whelk, Dr. Pilsner, and Dr. Frackmeyer while they were peeing (per doctor)

275.00

Also Dr. Whelk mentioned it to Dr. Hogworth at the polo match

340.00

Gratuity

85.00

If, after examining the bill carefully, you feel satisfied that all the dollar amounts are lined up neatly on the right-hand side, you should submit it to your insurance company, which will, without even looking at it, send it back to you with a testy note telling you that you filled out the forms all wrong. This will give you time to sell your house and children to raise the cash you’ll need for when you finally get everything filled out right and the insurance company notifies you that the only thing you’re actually covered for is 60 percent of the Dixie cup.

Home Emergency First-Aid Chart to Be Kept Posted on the Bulletin Board underneath the Coupons That, If You Save Up Ten of Them, Get You a Free Medium Pizza

HOME EMERGENCY TREATMENT Decapitation. Elevate head; shriek for assistance. Victim has swallowed fabric softener. Induce vomiting by showing the victim a videotape of that speech Richard Nixon gave about his mother after he resigned. Victim has swallowed a can of chicken gumbo soup. So? What’s so bad about that? Victim has swallowed the actual can. Oh. Is this by any chance the same victim that swallowed the fabric softener? Boy, that victim has a real problem.