European Stars And Stripes (Newspaper) - January 12, 1989, Darmstadt, Hesse                                Alarming news ears exploding Heads and doors by Dave Barry Knight Ridder newspapers it s time for alarming medical news the popular feature that can strike of any time without warning symptoms. For your Protection this column undergoes a rigorous fact checking procedure under which before we will print an item it must first be delivered to us by the . Postal service. Don t bother to thank us we Aren t listening. Speaking of which our first alarming item concerns the recently discovered ear problem from hell we Learned about this thanks to Alert Reader Dianne Eicher who sent in an american medical association newsletter containing an article about a North Carolina Man who went to his doctor complaining of a full sensation in one ear accompanied by a hearing loss. The doctor checked it out and found that the Man s ear canal was blocked by we Are not making this up a plug of hardened super glue. Now some of you Are scratching your Heads and asking How does a person with an in higher than pastry get super glue in his ear and not know it but you parents out there Are no doubt nodding your Heads and saying it would not Surprise me to learn that this Man has a 3-year-old  and of course you parents Are right. According to the Ama newsletter the son squirted the super glue into his father s left ear while the Man was sleeping. Fortunately surgeons were Able to unclog the Man s ear but As medical Consumers we can prevent this kind of near tragedy by remembering to take these Basic safety precautions 1. Never keep 3-year-old children around the House. 2. If you do never sleep. Also you older children should remember that super glue is a serious household repair substance and not a toy to be used in such hilarious pranks As applying it to the toilet seats in the faculty men s room taking care to first prepare the surface by wiping it clean of Oil and dirt. Our next item was brought to our attention by Debbie and Lindsey Mackey who alerted us to an article in the British medical journal the Lancer with the following title exploding head syndrome quite frankly we were disappointed by this syndrome. We naturally assumed from the title that it would involve the actual explosion of a person s head ideally Barry Manilow s in concert. But it turns out to be just this Weenie syndrome where you Wake up in the Middle of the night having a violent sensation of explosion in the head. Big Deal. We get that All the time but you Don t see us whining to the lancet. You see us making a mental note to drink Gin from smaller containers. But not right now. Right now we want to Tell you about the exciting new advances in . Measurement we found out about this through Alert readers James Mcnab and Shelley Owens who sent us an article from the journal of the american society for heating refrigeration and air conditioning engineers written by a Man named we Are still not making this up p. Ole Fanger. Or. Fanger who hails from Denmark has done a lot of research in the Field of measuring exactly How much a Given human being tends to stink up a Given room and he has come up with a unit of air pollution called the Olf from the latin Olf actus or olfactory sense. To quote the article one Olf is the emission rate of air pollutants  effluents from a Standard person figure we sincerely wish that we could show you figure 1, which is a truly wonderful drawing of a Standard person with dozens of Little smell arrows shooting out of his body. Looking at this drawing reminded us of one of the highlights of our life which is the time that we were with two friends of ours Randall and George in a bar that was empty except for two women at the far end of the room. George after maybe 17 Miller High lifes decided to make a move which was pretty funny because George even on those occasions when he has total control Over his Sears dentures is not exactly Paul Newman or even or. De. But he went lunging Over there and with All the subtlety of Hurricane Gilbert attempted to strike up a conversation which the two women were clearly not interested in. So they were quiet and after a while George got quiet and we were listening quietly so the whole bar was very quiet when George had an unfortunate bodily event. It s the kind of event that can happen to anybody except maybe Margaret Thatcher but it rarely happens with the magnitude that it happened to George. Of course in those Days we did not have modern measurement techniques but we re sure that this event was completely off the scale on the Olf meter. We re Only sorry that we did t get to see the two women virtually sprint from the bar because we were lying Flat on the floor laughing so hard that we thought we were going to suffer a heart attack which everyone should know the six warning signs of. Today s medical tip never undergo any kind of major surgery without first making an appointment. Couple to Host sunday Tea in Honor of first baby by miss manners United feature Syndicate dear miss manners my husband and i Are expecting our first child. We would like to have a Tea in the child s Honor a few weeks after the birth. The intention is to replace the traditional christening and after christening party which we do not plan to hold being hopelessly irreligious. What we had in mind was Champagne and White cake and Little sandwiches at 4 . On a sunday. The guests would be family and close friends. We could get the local minister to mutter something irreligious Over the infant s head. . Do i get any credit for planning to write notes to announce the child s birth instead of sending out those Dopey Little cards gentle Reader you get credit for everything except the crack about getting a Clergyman to mutter something irreligious. Giving a reception for your intimates to meet your baby is a charming idea provided you do not attempt to make it a pseudo christening. Hopelessly irreligious people should have the courage of their Lack of convictions. Dear miss manners genealogical study and research Are worthy and popular pursuits but in Many families there Are instances where the dates of the marriage and the birth of the first child Are less than nine months apart. This can be an embarrassment especially to older family members who May have tried to downplay the situation. Is is appropriate for a family researcher to ask for Date information compile it and distribute the family tree to All concerned How should respondents handle inquiries in these instances gentle Reader miss manners is shocked. Have these older family members never heard of premature babies medical science has made wonderful Progress in recent years when great numbers of fully developed robustly healthy babies have been born months Early which is the Only official explanation for their having appeared so soon after their parents marriages. It is also possible that the dates on which relatives distinctly remember attending weddings could have been merely the dates of Public ceremonies following private secret marriages. In any Case miss manners does not believe that research into one s own living family is quite As sacred As historical scholarship where no Effort should be spared to obtain the truth. She does not find fault with genealogists who request such information from relatives but she sees nothing wrong with the recipients failing to answer some of the questions or forge fully putting Down wrong dates. Dear miss manners having been involved in a Long distance Romance for some time i will move closer to my Boyfriend this summer so we can decide whether to marry some Day. Though i would prefer to live in my own apartment finances require that i accept his invitation to move into his spare bedroom at least until i am settled into a new Job. My parents understand the situation but have asked that i not Tell my grandmother who would disapprove of the arrangement. I am a terribly unconvincing liar and would prefer to answer my grandmother s questions truthfully and weather the storm of her disapproval. However my parents would be the innocent targets of much of her raging. Should i create an acceptable fiction for my grandmother to spare my family these arguments gentle Reader if you have convinced your Mother that finances Are the Only reason for your moving into the gentleman s apartment you Are not As bad at fudging facts As you wish miss manners to believe. Were you Ever so impoverished miss manners dares say that you would find some Way to avoid sharing an apartment with a gentleman you found terribly unappealing. Sparing your parents your grandmother s disapproval is easy. As you say you can take it on yourself without attempting to cite parental approval thus leaving your parents free to defend themselves by saying no we Don t like it but she s grown up and makes her own  More difficult is the question of whether your grandmother needs sparing. If she is feisty enough to argue social questions with you perhaps you should just Tell her. If she is frail and Likely Only to be distressed by the news you can fudge a bit. I m using Eric s address after All i m Over there practically All the time is not a lie. Have a question on etiquette write to miss manners in care of the stars and stripes Apo 09211. Your question will be forwarded to her. Miss manners regrets that she can Only answer questions in her column. January 12, 1989 stripes Magazine