idiot-prufs

French Fries and Lab Rats.

“French fries cause cancer in lab rats,” he told me in a voice dripping with condescension.

“What?’ I responded, taken back a little.

“Those things,” he said derisively as he nodded at the plate of french fries in front of me, “they cause cancer in lab rats.” There was a level of contempt in his voice accentuating the word those, that would normally be reserved for those war criminals or those mass murderers.

“I’m sorry, do you have many friends that are lab rats?” I felt genuine concern.

“Of course I don’t have many friends that are lab rats.” He felt it was a genuine insult.

“Is that because you don’t have many friends period?” Again, concern.

“I have friends,” he said defensively, “it’s just that many of them aren’t lab rats.” (It’s difficult to overstate the amount of pleasure I took from prompting another human being to utter that sentence.)

“I’ll tell you what I’m going to do for you, I’m going finish this plate of french fries and rid the world of this particular bit of evil.” Genuine sarcasm.

“People like you are ruining the world!” he shouted then stormed away. (I have often wondered what group of people he meant were ruining the world: people who eat french fries or people who are sarcastic.)

Note: in an unrelated matter, I have always felt there should be occasions when it’s legal to stab a person in the side of the head with a plastic fork. Unfortunately the law is far less progressive in it’s thinking than I am.

I decided to check this out for myself. It turns out the weird little man was right, a weird little bit. Fried foods contain a substance called acrylamide; acrylamide has been used to induce cancer in lab rats. There are however, a few other things that have been used to induce cancer in lab rats:

• sugar.
• caffeine.
• salt.
• nicotine.
• alcohol.
• plutonium.
• radium.
• radon.
• yellow cake uranium.
• yellow cake with frosting.
• strawberry shortcake.
• Strawberry Shortcake the doll.
• Jersey Shore reruns.
• Coming within ten feet of the glowing skin of any cast member of Jersey Shore.
• whatever that crap is they put in their hair.
• the sound of Snooki’s voice.

Here’s the twist: to ingest the same amount of acrylamide that was injected into these lab rats, you would have to eat 346 orders of large McDonald’s fries everyday. If you eat 346 orders of large McDonald’s fries everyday, an oncologist is not the type of doctor that is going to tell you that you’re going to die.

So the next time you think about telling me that french fries cause cancer in lab rats, you might just get stabbed in the side of the head with a plastic fork.

Correction: the sound of Snooki’s voice does not cause cancer in lab rats; it kills them outright.