If you experience any of these events, press the heart monitor button!
Your physician will affix the heart monitor to your chest. Wear it at all times, including showering. If you experience any of the following, press the monitor button and record the time, date and symptom:
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Wear your heart monitor at all times. Press once for palpitations, dizziness/lightheadedness, faintness, chest discomfort, shortness of breath or exercise-related symptoms.
- Press twice for distress while watching any major news network broadcast.
- Press three times for despair while watching Fox News.
- Press four times if you wake up in a cold sweat from dreaming about a menage a quatre with Kristi Noem, Pam Bondi and Tulsi Gabbard.
- Press five times after RFK Jr. tells you that vaccines caused your atrial flutter, then press 911.
- Press six times if your plumber inspects your sewer line, grins slyly, then asks whom you liked better in Roots: Older Kunta Kinte (John Amos) or Younger Kunta Kinte (LeVar Burton).
- When you arrive at your mother’s apartment for dinner, she introduces you to a single young woman named Trudy. Press three shorts, three longs, three shorts, then press 1-800-GET-UBER.
- Press once/twice/thrice/quadrice if you get to first/second/third/home base with Hettie Glickman.
- If under 80 and have just had successful sex, press once.
- If over 80 and have just had successful sex, press the overture to The Ride of the Valkyries.
- You texted a passionate message to an unbelievably appealing woman named Jean but then realized that your AI app sent it to your girlfriend Joan. Press 1-800-EZ-BURIAL.
- Peering down from the pitcher’s mound at your catcher’s crotch, you see him flash two fingers straight down, then one finger pointing right, signifying “My place at 9 tonight, big boy.” Press once, then three times, signifying “Sounds good — fast balls, meat balls, or sliders?”
- Aboard the Starship Enterprise, you greet Mr. Spock with the split-finger Vulcan salute signifying “Live long and prosper.” Unfortunately you split the wrong two fingers, signifying “Go commit an auto-sexual act” instead. Quickly press once before being immobilized by the Vulcan neck-nerve pinch.
- Upon entering Rick’s Café Americain in Casablanca, you are awed by the alluring Ilsa Lund sitting alone at the bar. You offer to buy her a drink, but she replies “Veuillez me laisser tranquille, s’il vous plait”. You don’t understand a word of French, but you get the message when she presents her middle finger and briskly walks away. Deflated, you turn to the piano player and say “Play it again, Sam.” Sam replies “Play it yourself, buddy, I’m on my break.” Press twice, then press La Marseillaise.
- While following the Yellow Brick Road to the Emerald City, you encounter three white guys in MAGA hats. The first has straw stuffed into his shirt, the second is wrapped in tinfoil, the third is wearing a shaggy fur cape. You say “Wait a minute, what happened to the scarecrow, the tin woodman, and the cowardly lion?” They answer “The Wizard issued an executive order: DEI in Oz verboten ist.” Press once, then click your heels together three times to return to Kansas.
- When looking for a restroom during a White House tour, you take a wrong turn and enter a large darkened room, illuminated only by the glowing embers of a small fire. As your eyes adjust to the darkness you dimly see three figures chained to posts behind the fire; with horror you recognize them to be Nancy Pelosi, Chuck Schumer, and Gavin Newsom. Surrounding them are the entire Trump Cabinet, naked to the waist and streaked with blood-red paint, chanting “MA-GA! MA-GA!” Behind them is Trump himself, seated on an elevated orange golf cart, leading the chanting by waving a golden nine iron. Press three times, then record a video. Sell the video to 60 Minutes for a substantial sum.
- If you’re thinking of a third term for Trump, press all the digits of pi.
Michael Perlman sprouted in the shadow of Wrigley Field, home of the Chicago Cubs and, at that time, the Chicago Bears. He found his calling in mathematics at Caltech, Stanford, Cambridge UK, the University of Chicago, and finally the University of Washington in Seattle, where he was the founding chair of the Department of Statistical Science.But the mathematical lobe in his brain was drawn to the rhythm and meter of rhyming verse, giving voice to "Baldy Bear" and other whimsical characters.Michael has complemented his mathematical endeavors with both poetry and prose, often satirical and/or political, hopefully amusing.
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