Science Forum with non-Dr. Nick Olig, Volume 1: The Appendix Is Really Lame

On behalf of the non-scientific community, I'd like to gripe about a potentially dangerous freeloader that lurks inside of you and me: The appendix.

Really, it would be too kind to dismiss the appendix as a mere freeloader in our digestive systems. As if lingering lazily while the stomach and intestines do all the grunt-work wasn't lousy enough, the appendix is potentially dangerous, too. The appendix can inflame and burst, send us to the emergency room reeling with agony, and possibly even kill us.

Now, I don't know anyone who has died from a ruptured appendix, but I did once talk to a guy who claimed that he lost two family members to appendicitis while playing the computer game of Oregon Trail, and that alone made a dark impression on me.

Webster's dictionary defines the appendix as, “1. Supplementary material, usually at the end of a book. 2. The vermiform appendix.”

Well, that definition doesn't help us much, and so I had to leaf through hundreds of pages to the “V” section.

Got it. The vermiform appendix: “A slender, closed tube attached to the large intestine.”

There are two types of appendixes, and while the first one in question is little more than a boring works-cited page tacked on by authors who don't want to get sued for plagiarism, it is nowhere near as lame or evil as the threatening mooches wasting space inside of us: The vermiform appendix. The appendix of a book may bore you to tears, but the vermiform appendix does nothing but try to kill us at random.

“Vermiform” means worm-like in shape. The appendix's resemblance to a worm is another strike against our worst internal organ. Worms have been known to freeload in people's lawns and gardens. They're slimy, gross, and they don't pay rent. Worms are weak, too. A downpour of April Showers and toddlers frolicking in the back yard are two common causes of death for worms. Those pitiful squiggles probably have nightmares about almost drowning in supersaturated soil and escaping to sidewalk only to be squashed by a little girl playing hop-scotch in the rain.

That worm-shaped sliver of supplementary guts has psychotic impulses, too. Appendixes can become inflamed and burst and cause us bodily harm when we least expect it. Our digestive system's vile idler has been known to wreak havoc in the form of an appendicitis, a medical emergency that can compell our bodies to the hospital if we're luck or compel our corpses to the morgue if we're unlucky like those poor souls from the Oregon Trail game .

Think of the appendix as a mooching drifter who lives in a guest-bedroom without paying rent or doing anything productive. Picture the appendix, that three-inch pest, munching on Funions that the spleen probably paid for, lounging on a tattered sofa, jerking off to Telemundo soap operas. The appendix just wants to blare hippie-music as he rolls joints on top of the cheap set of bongos that he stole from a pawn shop while the other organs tirelessly break down and digest food and drink and convert it all into life-sustaining energy (and then poop, or “number-two,” if you prefer). The appendix belongs in a toilet along with all the other human waste, but because that three-inch pest is firmly connected to the large intestine, its successful and responsible older brother, we are unable to expel it from our systems like a spoiled corn-dog.

Laziness is the defining trait of the vermiform appendix, but beneath its freeloading harmlessness lurks the psychotic impulses I mentioned earlier. The appendix is volatile and sometimes malicious, too. After years and years of peacefully jamming out to the Grateful Dead and Phish and Marley, the appendix has a tendency to suddenly mutate into a raging and deranged fan of heavy-metal. When it bursts and inflicts trouble, the appendix blares the chaos offered by bands such as Digestive System of a Down, Abdomen Slayer, and Megadeth (no pun required for that last one). Just before the appendix attacks, imagine it lounging in a stupor as usual, only to unexpectedly crank up Kill 'Em All on the stereo and then shank us with the Mexican half of a split Cheech and Chong DVD.

More Stories, and Additional Stories is the name of that eBook. Which I wrote. Me. Nick Olig. So, let's try to strike up a balance between me being too haughty and you completely not giving a shit and make a damn sale already, for fuck's sake.