New Face for Your Sweetheart?

What are you getting your sweetie for Valentine’s Day?

Flowers? Candy? Dinner out someplace nice? All the above because you’ve been a total horse’s patoot recently?

How about a new face?

Sam and I just read an article by Raffi Khatchadourian, a so-called “reporter at large,” in The New Yorker magazine (Feb. 13 & 20, 2012) about these two people who have received face transplants. No kidding.

This guy in Fort Worth, Texas, had his face destroyed when he came into contact with a high-voltage electric transmission line. A woman in a French town near Belgium woke up from a nap one day to discover her Labrador dog had eaten her mouth, nose and a good part of her face. She had taken some sleeping pills so apparently she was in a REALLY DEEP slumber, when poochy poo decided to dine on her. Can you imagine? And I always liked Labs. The dog probably tried to wake his mistress up to tell her he was hungry, licked her face, decided her face tasted pretty good, and like most of us who intend to nibble just a smidgen of a delicious dessert, wound up saying, “I can’t believe I ate the whole thing.”

Anyway, if you want to get your sweetie something totally different for Valentine’s Day, you might want to consider a face transplant. I mean, if you’ve been married as long as Kathleen and I have it’s quite difficult to come up with a new gift idea. And these days where so many people are into vampires and the occult and whatnot, maybe a face transplant doesn’t sound too ghoulish.

Kathleen of course, nixed the idea right off. I was thinking I could get Sam to eat her face then we’d run down to the hospital and get her a new one. Every time Kathleen rubs lotion on her legs Sam seems to think it’s his job to lick the lotion off. She gets a little aggravated with him about that.

But if I could somehow get her to fall asleep on the couch then rub a little lotion on her face . . . you see where I’m going with this? (Obviously, I’m not serious - in case you were wondering).

Of course the hospital would have to find a willing face donor; you know, some sexy actress or model who had just been involved in a fatal accident. Unfortunately, the operation reportedly is quite delicate and lengthy, not to mention painful and god-awful expensive. Then there are the other drawbacks mentioned in The New Yorker article: possible rejection of the donor face; partial tissue acceptance, but maybe the mouth or the eyes or nose might not work right. Connecting microscopic nerves and blood vessels from the old body to the new face is a gamble to test the chutzpah of even the most jaded Las Vegas bookmaker doctor.

Actually, I like Kathleen’s present face. I’ve always been a sucker for a pretty face and as soon as I saw hers I wanted to ask her out. She hasn’t lost one iota of her looks in the ensuing 20 years either - hardly a crow’s foot to be seen, no frown lines - and I really don’t want to change her. In my considered opinion she’s still looking pretty dang fine. I guess I’ll call a nice restaurant and buy some flowers.

A bag of poop on sneaky old Cupid though, ‘cause you never know where he’s gonna’ strike.