Back a couple of years ago, 1996 or so, there was a spate of really gruesome medical shows on the "educational" cable channels. Operation, Autopsy, stuff like that. It got to where me and my buds would just refer to TLC as "the surgery channel".

Worse yet, these shows were really popular with my friends. I'd go visit 'em, and they'd have the Surgery Channel on during dinner. Made meals real interesting. And you should hear the table talk! "Have you smelled what a cautery does? Just like burnt meat or feathers. Which is what it is, of course." YUMMY! What a lovely thought, to wash down my pizza with!

Then they'd have Surgery Parties! They'd tape like six of these, back-to-back, and just leave 'em running, like video wallpaper, for an entire party. And they'd have the usual party fare, of course, like spaghetti with eyeballs, I mean olives, pizza with strange toppings that look like alien gonads, hors d'oeveurs shaped like amputated protuberances. They'd have these wonderful drinks, too. Ever put Tang in root beer? It comes to life. True. I've seen it. You don't want to. And you really don't want to taste it. Trust me on this.

Then would come time to put the wrong stuff in the microwave! Whee! York peppermint patties would split in twain, like sundered planets, oozing lava, bubbling seething magma, like miniature versions of When Worlds Expand into Horrible Festering Scum Wads. Then stuff that isn't even remotely food. Like Irish Spring. It swells up, splits into layers, then grows into these strange foaming green and white striped rams' horns things. And the smell! Ye gods, the smell that Won't Go Away. Ever. I still have that microwave, because I can't give it away. Ever.

It gets worse. Then the nurd comes up with some strange idea like putting electronic stuff in my microwave. It says in Large Clear READ-THIS-NOW, MORTAL warnings: DO NOT PLACE METAL, FOIL, or EVEN ANYTHING SHINY inside or even NEAR the MICROWAVE OVEN, even if it is unplugged, broken, and has been home to a family of voles for several years. But Geek Wonder says that if you take a "l.e.d.", and spread its "l.e.g.s." apart, it makes a microwave antenna or something, and lights up in an unusual color! So he takes this little electronic womdigit he doubtless carved out of my one working alarm clock with a pocket knife, bends the wires a certain way, and puts it my microwave. He always manages to draw a really audience for this procedure. Out go the lights, so people can knock sticky party food dishes all over the kitchen floor, and, after a grand (for a dweeb) pause, Pushes the Start Button. There's a tiny pop, a little spark, and a horrible smell. A teeny little thing smaller than a pea can fill the entire room with this indescribably mediciney, scorchy, chemically smell instantaneously. And some drunken lout I don't remember inviting will always say "Let's do anuther onE!" And some other random piece of my house gets zapped. Steel wool is a recurring favourite for some arcane reason. Luckily, I'm not emotionally attached to my steel wool. However, I use mine for scrubbing things, so it Usually has soap on it. Sometimes I buy the kind that has soap already on it. If that's in the house, I guarantee that's what they'll use. Then the Irish Spring fumes get another jolt of Cheap Pink Soap fumes, blended with Eau De Scorched Steel. Yummy! And I'm sure this is healthy for the microwave. I stop them before they decide to nuke a housefly. Then they all have to tell their favourite stories of animals in microwaves, which drives me back to the living room.

Sure enough, they're still doing horrible surgical things to barely recognizable as human forms swaddled in green cloth stained with human blood, festooned with A Thousand Tweezers Of Pinchingness.

Now I have no particular problem with gratuitous gore, myself. In fact, it's useful. You cuddle up with someone attractive in the darkness, and squeeze during the scary/gross parts. Good clean fun. One of the reasons I throw parties, is to cuddle with people.

Doesn't work so well, watching a surgery show. There's not really any plot buildup or tension, other than knowing that any minute now, they're going to cut up a live human person, with real knives and scary medical implements, and show everything in closeup, and tack on dialogue that is certainly not the sort of soothing distraction you'd really rather prefer if you were being forced to watch vivisection. And it doesn't seem to turn people on, either. You get one sort, that just has to leave, and be alone to shiver for a while. And another sort, that watch in tense, horrified fascination. And the really scary ones, who marvel in rapt attention, chain-chomping potato chips dipped in chocolate pudding or anything else nearby. And, of course, one couple who madly make out on the end of the couch, sneaking peeks at the highbrow gorefest from time to time.

Fortunately, people were eventually satiated on watching intestinal surgery on TV, and a new fad came to replace it. Unfortunately, it was the OJ trial. I shudder to think of what will be next. Brightly lit medical closeups of movie stars murdering folks? I wouldn't be surprised.