08-041
Smiledorphins: A
Breakthrough to Smile About
Forget the multivitamins. Cancel your gym membership and put transfats back into your diet. Stunning evidence uncovered only this morning reveals a simple yet overlooked method to increase your lifespan and have lots of fun in the process.
According to research conducted by Memorial Medical Center’s Dr. Avril First, people who find them themselves the butt of practical jokes live a disproportionately long time compared with the general populace. Her studies show that a simple enzyme, smiledorphin – released only in situations such as finding the salt in one’s shaker has been replaced with sugar – is linked to longevity.
Smiledorphins are secreted by microscopic nodes in the happythalmus called gulliblasts, previously believed to occur only in seabirds. When released, smiledorphins cause a feeling of giddiness and cause the subject to produce a gleeful whoop, a sound much like that voiced by some species of the crane, in which the enzyme was first observed.
This morning, an ad hoc double-blind randomized study was conducted at MMC’s new metaneurosphysiocognitive research laboratory. First and her team observed participants’ reactions to false information: that they’d spilled gravy on their ties. Horrified, they examined their cravats, only to find them spotless. “Their goofy grins when they realized they’d been had proved the enzyme was at work,” reports First.
After tabulating their responses, First deducted that the effect of increased smiledorphins caused the participants to leave the clinic with increased positive drive and purpose, mostly to “get even” and “never let this kind of thing happen again.”
Long ignored by the medical community, smiledorphins will soon be on the lips of every practitioner, First believes. “Even Dr. Gott hasn’t mentioned them yet,” she says. “You’d think he’d prescribe them right up there with the bar of soap under the sheet, but he hasn’t – yet.”
Today’s results should change all that. According to the simple pie chart First drew while lunching at the Old Hamlin following this morning’s study, the effect of smiledorphins on adjectival stamina, cardiovascular matriculation and Sibley-Ahlquist taxonomy are equal if not greater than jogging a mile each day, flossing or a steady diet of green tea.
As with any new health regimen, there’s no time like the present to begin. Today, in fact, is the perfect day to watch your friends try to pick up a coin you’ve superglued to the sidewalk. Or drop a few drops of green food coloring into Mom’s milk carton. Tell Little Brother his shoelace is untied. When they realize it’s all just a prank and that their smiledorphin levels are on the rise, they’ll thank you for starting them on the path of a long, healthy life.
“Seabirds have been around forever,” explains First. “They date from the Cretaceous period 40 million years ago, and we have good reason to believe we can increase the human lifespan so we’ll be on equal par with loons and boobies.”
Dr. First’s work can be seen at http://www.mentaljokes.com/images/happybk.gif.
