MAD DOG: Replaceable Body Parts - Get 'em Now
Just think, one day we may all be like Mr. Potato Head. You remember him and his wife, the former Ms. Potato Skin. They were the popular vegetables from your childhood with the replaceable eyes, ears, mouth, arms and legs that we all loved to play with when we had absolutely nothing better to do and Mom threatened us with having to go to the beauty parlor with her and smell perms and look at women sitting under hair dryers, all the time having nothing better to read than two year-old Family Circles with all the recipes and coupons cut out.Besides being fun, Mr. Potato Head is educational. He not only teaches children about why Pamela Anderson Lee looks like she does, he also shows them why Michael Jackson doesn't look anything like he did when he was growing up.The fact is, Mr. Potato Head is also useful as a means to determine a person's age. All you have to do is ask them one simple question: Mr. Potato Head, vegetable or hunk of plastic? What started as a bunch of plastic facial features and body parts which you stabbed into a potato wherever you wanted to later evolved (and I use the term loosely) into a bunch of plastic facial features and body parts which you stuck into pre-determined holes in a vaguely potato-shaped piece of plastic. Doesn't that sound like fun? Anyone who's ever used the phrase "the good old days", even in jest, knows the vegetable version. Anyone who doesn't is deprived, too young for you to be messing around with, and destined to spend many, many years in analysis.The truth is, Mr. Potato Head isn't the first time people thought about replaceable body parts. Leonardo Da Vinci, or "Leonard the Wino" as he's known in English-speaking countries, first sketched a drawing of a human with replaceable parts in his notebook, the same notebook that includes those famous drawings of the first helicopter, the first parachute, and the first chia pet. But until recently this was all nothing but a scientist's wet dream. Well, not anymore. Now scientists are going to have to find something else to fantasize about, because the days of such primitive body replacements as messy heart transplants, time-consuming prosthesis-fittings, and silicone breast implants that cause health problems, lawsuits and men's testosterone level to skyrocket so high their mouths cease to function correctly, causing them to salivate uncontrollably are finally over.Yes, now we have snap-on hair.That's right. A cosmetic surgeon in West Seneca, NY has figured out a way to embed four gold snaps deep in the bone of the skull. Besides providing a place to secure your mittens so you won't lose them when you go out to play in the snow, these snaps can also be used to fasten a hairpiece to your head. And what better place to fasten a hairpiece!Dr. Anthony Pignaturo came up with the idea four years ago and, believe it or not, tried it on himself first. (Please! Put that Black and Decker cordless reversible screwdriver down! He's a trained professional and you're not!) Since then more than 100 men have had the procedure done, and they'd better report back to Dr. Pignaturo because I think they've got a screw loose.Look. I'm bald. In fact my head's shaved completely clean. There's no way you'd get me to let someone, doctor or otherwise, drive screws into my head so I can snap hair on like a swimming pool cover. Especially for $4,000. Snaps belong on cowboy shirts, not on my head.Dr. Pignaturo says he got the inspiration for snap-on hair from a surgical technique called implantology (I'm not making this up!) which uses snaps in patients' bones to anchor -- are you ready for this? -- artificial eyes, noses and ears. Just like Mr. Potato Head! (Attention lawyers: I see a big bucks here and all I want is 15% for the referral.)The truth is, Dr. Pignaturo might be on to something here. Why stop at the head? What better way would there be for a woman to keep a strapless gown on than to have snaps embedded in her ribs? And think about it, having snaps on your shoulders would keep those pesky bra straps from slipping and falling. Tube tops? Sagging stocking? No problem! This could mean the end of ear piercing and lost earrings!Hey men, tired of your socks falling down? Quit cursing whoever the moron was who invented tube socks (I've got a heel, you see it? A heel!) and go get Dr. Pignaturo to implant snaps in your shins. And most exciting of all, we finally have the cure we've all been waiting for: a fool-proof way to keep repairmen's pants from slipping down so we have to look at unsightly crack shots when all we really want is for the refrigerator to stop churning out ice cubes already! It's easy. We'll pass legislation to put snaps on the lower spine of every repairman!One day maybe they'll erect a monument to Anthony Pignaturo, the man who, at least for bald men, eliminated the bad hair day. But until then we can all sit around and dream up new uses for his procedure. Trust me, it's a snap.
