Rush - Milking the Rhino: Dangerously Funny Lists

W hen a human being laughs heavily, say enough to affect bladder control, the brain secretes a chemical called endorphin, which means indigenous morphine. When a person laughs repeatedly in rapid succession, the effect is euphoria, or intoxication. Im sure most of you remember getting rubber-legged, weak, and even falling down laughing. You get stoned naturally, legally, and affordably, with no physical drawbacks. In fact, as many of you know, laughter makes you live longer. It purges the body of free radicals and other toxins induced by stress, while fighting disease by boosting the immune system. Laughter also reduces violent behavior. The most rapidly growing violent crime in America is the workplace shooting.

Bill: Hey, Ed. Come over here. I want to show you something.

Ed: Oh, my god! Is that a submachine gun?

Bill: Thats right, Ed. I was going to kill you and the entire accounting department, but then I got into this Milking the Rhino book and laughed till I peed my pants. See the stain? Now I feel great!

Ed: Wow!

Bill: If it werent for this little book, the cleaning lady would be scraping your brains off the water cooler.

Ed: Can I borrow it?

Bill: Dont push it, Ed!

So the question became, what kind of book would be the most efficient endorphin-delivery system? It struck me that the list might be the perfect form, when combined with my admittedly psychotic comedy style, to induce endorphin cascades in the brains of readers. In order for the form to work for me as a writer, however, it would have to sweep me up, captivate me, and cause my twisted mind to move automatically, like a dogs leg when you rub that special spot on its tummy. Well, it worked very well indeedIve slept about nine hours in the last few months, because the lists wont stop coming. Apparently, the structure of a listthe heading and then the items, each one novel and separate, given context only by the headinghas a salted-peanuts effect for the reader and a powerfully addictive effect on me.

Well, by nature Im a stream-of-consciousness-type comedian, and I was scheduled to take a five-hour plane flight, so

A four-hundred-pound man on his way to see a flatulence specialist

A nun with Tourettes syndrome

A transparent Amelia Earhart having an animated conversation with a transparent Buddy Holly

A body builder in a sleeveless T-shirt with BO so bad he was fired from his job at a sewage treatment plant

A man with a live squirrel in his pants who keeps opening his fly to feed it peanuts

A very thin woman wearing a T-shirt that says Proud to Be Bulimic, who keeps saying she hopes you hit some heavy turbulence

A nervous man inflicted with a severe facial twitch, uncontrollable blinking, compulsive toe tapping, leg crossing, earlobe pulling, and knuckle cracking, who asks you to please stop chewing gum

A drunken transvestite with a heavy five oclock shadow who keeps talking to you in a loud voice about various gender-concealment techniques involving duct tape

A strange little man wearing a derby who picks his nose vigorously and then puts the fruits of his labor in a small silver box and winks at you knowingly

An unfortunate man with see-through prosthetic cheeks, eating a peanut-butter-and-jelly sandwich

A Middle Eastern-looking man with a very large facial mole that is ticking

Twin albino ten-year-olds with blank expressions and eerie blue eyes, who are boiling water in a beverage glass by staring at it.

They say that about half of working Americans like or even love their jobs. They are the lucky ones, but even they probably had to suffer in crappy jobs first; so if you are now in job hell, grin and bear it and be thankful you dont have one of these.

Rhino milker

Shark-repellent tester

Professional mourner at a pet cemetery

Vaseline boy on a stud farm

Mime in Rwanda

Croupier at the Russian roulette table

Judge at a voodoo-cursing contest

Head of the complaint department in a gun store in Somalia

Clam trainer

Amish disc jockey

Foreman on a spider ranch

Mayor of a trailer camp

Scab shoveler at a slaughterhouse

Streetwalker in Greenland

Teller at a sperm bank

Cannibalism instructor

Door-to-door penile-implant salesman

Baby-seal-club salesman

Landscaper in Antarctica

Mormon marriage counselor

Neck-brace model

Bible salesman in Afghanistan

Troubleshooter for the department of sewers

Stunt man in army venereal disease films

Greeter at a federal penitentiary

They say a persons choice of pet often reflects his or her personality. Folks who choose exotic animals like ocelots and iguanas are trying to show uniqueness. I once spent the night at the home of a woman who kept tarantulas and scorpions. She was a lawyer. I slept on top of the refrigerator.

Nigel Pennyworth of Sheffield, England, had a tapeworm that he named Sam and taught to beg for sweets. Nigel would tap his front teeth with a sugar cube and then slowly raise the sugar cube higher and higher until his parasitical pet extended a full ten inches out of his mouth. Unfortunately, Nigel liked to do this at upscale restaurants, despite the screaming, fainting, and vomiting of the patrons. He was often assaulted for his performances and was once stabbed with an escargot fork by the headwaiter at Maxims in Paris.