Before you take to the internet.

I have long been a self-analyzer, a self-diagnoser, a self-helper. Not a hypochondriac, it's not the same thing. But whereas Matt can stand by in the face of a potential malady and let nature take its course, I cannot. I have to be doing something. I have to know that should I one day fall prey to an illness, a mental breakdown, a marinara stain on a white tablecloth, at least I've done everything in my power to fix it.

Of course, when I say everything in my power, I mean that I Google the crap out of it. But herein lies the problem. Because most intelligent people will Google a problem once or twice before moving on to more effective solutions. They call doctors. They consult real people with faces and voices. They figure their shit out and move on with life. The remaining people sort of get sifted to the bottom of the search result pile. It's a scary place that smells like Funions and hairspray.

The bottom of the pile is where people go when a neglected cockatoo has eaten their fingers, preventing them from dialing 911. Where pregnant middle-schoolers with iPhones go. Where people with shotgun wounds go to find out if some leftover bathtub caulking will stop the bleeding. The inquiries are thrown out into cyberspace and left hanging until someone equally clueless replies, weeks later, after the caulking falls off and the infection sets in. Needless to say, no one can help you here. They will only feed your paranoia, suggest dangerous home remedies, and do it all without using a single vowel.

The cure? Ignore or treat. Don't Google a symptom more than three times. And don't, whatever you do, put your fingers in the cage.