CHINA - YELLOW UNDERPANTS WILL SAVE YOUR LIFE

Now that China's got the world's economy, manufacturing, and horrible disease outbreak on lockdown, they can move on to less crucial concerns, such as saggy underwear advocacy. Much like when you used to humiliate your little sister by tossing her flowered undies out her bedroom window onto the high branches of the tree in your parents' front yard, a new hospital at an undisclosed city in China just hung up a 12-foot-long yellow Y-front windsock out their front window to warn men of the dangers of wearing too-tight drawers. Supposedly that shit will squish your junk and give you urinary or reproductive trouble. Probably they just don't want their guys to get funny ideas that if they wear cling-film underpants they can start dressing like homos in skinny jeans, because that truly is the decline of civilization.

CANADA - SUPER SOFT SOFT BOOBS AND DINKS

My friend Ewald gave me a knitted tongue and vagina for my birthday last year. What a sweet guy. He found them at a craft fair in Montreal. Toronto artist Shannon Gerard sewed up this super sweet finger fun set that I am holding in my hands, along with other notable genitals Ewald saw on the table that day. 

BUENOS AIRES - DR. MENDELSON, I BELIEVE THERE IS SOMETHING CRAWLING ON YOUR FACE

My new orthodontist Dr. Mendelson has a unibrow the size of Mexico. It’s probably the grossest, hairiest thing I’ve ever seen. I really don’t want a three-inch-long tuft of her hair growing right near my open mouth while I'm having my teeth drilled, so yesterday, god dammit, I called Dr. Mendelson to complain. 

MONTREAL - VAGINA STRING THEORY

I'm broke, my hours at my shitty receptionist job keep getting cut, and I can't get another one because I'm not Francophone enough. My friends are on luxury vacations, my boyfriend's across the world, and I've read all the books in my apartment. I'm going crazy with poverty and free time. Thank Christ I live in one of the most academic metropolises in North America, where psychology grad students grow on trees and have grants for clinical research studies. They pay $10 an hour to listen to beeps on headphones. Beer money does not get easier. I saw a study that paid a whopping $80 for 4 hours of "clinical visit" time. I called immediately, only to find out it was an orgasm study. 

BOLLOCKS TO THE HIPPOCRATIC OATH - DO I MILK HIM?

A guy I’m seeing has asked me to milk his prostate. It isn’t surprising considering I’m a doctor, but for me it is the antithesis of hot. My main objection is the word "milking." That's for farm animals and breast pumps. I would never dream of whispering in a man’s ear, "I want to milk you dry." It’s like I’m about to masturbate a dairy cow. Or James Knight.

BOLLOCKS TO THE HIPPOCRATIC OATH - DON’T TOUCH ME

I have become an intimacy retard. I don’t like being touched. This is an unwanted side effect of becoming a doctor. Touching sick people every day has tainted all touching. Would you want to touch this leg? No, and neither do I. But I do. I finger diseases. I massage innards. I cut up flesh. I burrow inside old women’s fannies. I see a more intimate snapshot of other people’s bodies than any lover. So when I finish work, the last thing in the world I want is a hug.

LONDON - IF YOU'RE GONNA BE SICK, THIS IS WHAT YOU SHOULD GET

 

Time off work, weight loss, the rotting flesh of your enemies – whatever illness means to you, it’s always been with us, railing against the dream of living, if not forever, then at least for longer. As climate change begins to grip, New Testament visions of apocalypse are resurfacing. Perhaps if our afflictions are to have the last laugh, this will come in the form of a wasted and blasted landscape in which nothing but Cormac McCarthy exists. Until then, here’s a look at some of the finest ailments known to humankind.

DUBLIN - A HOLIDAY AT ACCIDENT AND EMERGENCY

Dublin’s an unmerciful bore. After 2 AM, every bar in the city is closed and the only thing moving with any purpose are taxis and ambulances. The taxis are making their way out of town to the suburbs but the ambulances are heading to the most macabre after-hours in the city: St. James’ Hospital A&E. 

BOLLOCKS TO THE HIPPOCRATIC OATH - DON'T GET SICK IN LONDON THIS WEEK

A word of warning if you’re in Britain this week: Do NOT fall gravely ill or almost die from some sort of massive trauma on or immediately following this Wednesday. That’s the official NHS changeover day, aka “first day of hospital” for the UK’s new crop of fresh-faced doctors. While they may not in fact kill you, it is entirely likely that your simple concussion or sliced finger or plague sores (PS: good one, Chinese village) will lead you into a sequence of events that culminate in my dad forwarding me an email with the subject line “Bedpan’s Revenge?” Here’s Vice UK’s resident physician, Dr. Mona Moore, with more on this horrifying annual occurrence.

TAKE THIS BLOG TO WORK - COOTIE COMBER

You know all those illnesses your parents and teachers freaked you out about when you were younger? Like if you ever caught tuberculosis or mono you’d probably die, so just shut up, do your homework, and don’t kiss anyone. Look at you now. You’re still alive, right? Yeah you are, because all these things really weren’t that big of a deal. Like lice… who cares? It’s just some bugs hanging out on your head, making it itchy. It’s fun to itch stuff! Picking at shit rules! Did you know people actually get paid to pick lice off kids’ dirty little scalps? Yes, that is a job, and it is not called "school nurse." We talked to a lice picker and now we are scratching our heads, but not out of confusion.