For most of my life, I’ve had to deal with a medical condition. I didn’t ask for this; I always wanted to be like everyone else. I try to bear it bravely. I don’t look for sympathy. But I think the time has come to speak out. Perhaps my struggle can make a difference in the lives of others with this ailment. I speak, of course, of Foot-In-Mouth Disease.

FIM sufferers are easy to identify, if you know the signs. Blurting. Cryptic proclamations. A seeming disdain for tact. Jokes that aren’t funny, or that are the antithesis of funny. When an otherwise normal person makes a statement that seems to be the result of temporary demon possession — for instance, remarking, “Wow, you do a great robot voice!” to a woman who is adjusting her scarf around her stoma — chances are FIM is involved.

We are, in short, the rampaging rhinoceri of the conversational Serengeti, thundering blindly through, bellowing and crunching things and shish-kebabing people on our horns, leaving trails of flattened debris.

Of course, the problem with recognizing FIM is that its symptoms can be identical to those of stupidity or Jackass Syndrome. For instance, enlisting George W. Bush as the poster child for FIM would certainly raise public awareness, but since no specialist has been able to rule out the two similar conditions, no firm diagnosis can be made in Bush’s case. The same applies to many celebrity possibilities, and so we as FIM sufferers find ourselves without a famous voice.

Come to think of it, that may be just as well.

What impact, you may ask, does FIM have on the lives of those affected? To answer that question, consider this typical interaction between a so-called “normal” person and one with FIM.

Normal: “How are you?”

FIM-affected person: “Fine. Say, how’s your mom?”

N: “What?”

F: “‘Cause she was great last night! Ha ha!”

N: (walks away)

F: “Whoa, what’s wrong with him?”

Bystander: “His mother died a month ago. You asshole.”

Clearly, FIM can have adverse effects on popularity. Its main side effects, however, are guilt and humiliation of the squirmy, wake-up-at-4-a.m.-and-berate-self variety. In the brain of a typical infected person, “I’m such a moron!” is the thought of greatest frequency, followed closely by “How could I say that?” and only then by “Boy, I’m hungry,” “Ooh, check out the secondary sex characteristics of that person,” “Are we really nothing but a string of gut on a stick of bone riding this piece of astral soot for one piteous splinter of eternity?” and the like.

This can cause distraction and self-consciousness, which in turn aggravate the blurting and humor-at-all-costs reflexes. FIM is a vicious and tragic cycle, and clearly something must be done.

But what? Medical research on FIM is in its infancy. As yet, no drug has been discovered that can adequately curb the blurting impulse. I’ve heard rumors of aversion therapies and special tongue restraints, but I’m afraid they’re pipe dreams, or at best, placebos accessible only to the flaky rich.

A couple of treatments generally used for other conditions have been shown to have limited usefulness against FIM. Jaw-wiring, for instance (although this is only effective in patients who are free of ventriloquism), and shots of Novocain to the tongue for those suffering so severely that they would rather never again say anything but “Wub!” than risk “Hey, nice birthmark!”

In my opinion, barring any medical breakthroughs, the best course of action is to heighten awareness. Maybe, if everyone in society knows of the existence of this disease, they’ll incline more to kindness than blank stares. They’ll be willing to ignore cryptic or horrible remarks instead of trying to puzzle them out; usage of the phrase “What did you mean by that?” will dwindle.

So we need awareness. Telethons to raise money for medical research and to subsidize gifts of apology from FIM sufferers to those we’ve offended. Posters, possibly with a picture of grungy clown shoes and the large caption, “How would you like to chew on these all the time?” (Fine print: “For the millions of people who have some form of Foot-In-Mouth Disease, the choice is taken from them. . . .”) Some sort of special medic alert bracelet so people know not to expose us to hot tempers or fragile egos.

I live in hope that a cure will be found. Until then, nice birthmark.

Wub.

Jackie May ([email protected]) is a sophomore majoring in English.