106. Oscopies: Twelve Fluxus Scores in Two Parts

I have designed a dozen Fluxus events for you and Reed to perform:


Thursday Last: Esophagogastroduodenoscopy

Medical Paperwork Score

1. Give a patient a form to fill out.

2. Ask for information the patient won’t be able to answer totally accurately (such as the name and exact dosage of every medicine he takes).

3. Ask redundant questions on the form.

4. Be sure to file this form in such a way that you will not be able to reuse the same filled-in form five days later.

Inserting the IV Score

1. Find a woman who has never stuck a needle into an arm before.

2. Give her a good right arm with a prominent vein.

3. Have her stick the needle in the arm tentatively so that the good right arm can feel quite acutely the needle going in.

4. Have her spill the blood out of the arm and work to clean it up.

5. Have her attach the IV tube to the good right arm so that the person attached to it can feel the cool liquid enter his arm.

Heavy Dose of Demerol Score

1. Have the patient with the good right arm rest on his left side.

2. Add a heavy dose of Demerol to the IV tube.

3. Have the patient with the good right arm feel the warmth of the Demerol enter his body.

4. Have the patient explain that the Demerol is working just before he falls fully asleep.

Esophagogastroduodenoscopy Score

1. Fill the room with total darkness.

2. Without saying a word among any of the performers insert an endoscope down the throat of the sleeping patient with the good right arm.

3. View the esophagus, stomach, and duodenum of the patient with the good right arm, finding no abnormalities.

4. Remove a few samples of the interior of the body of the patient with the good right arm for microscopic analysis.

Waking Up Score

1. In the role of a doctor, try to rouse the still-sleeping patient with the good right arm by raising your voice.

2. Leave the room because you are too busy to wait for the patient with the good right arm to wake.

3. In the role of a nurse, rouse the patient with the good right arm and explain that the doctor had tried to rouse him earlier.

4. Leave the room to look for the doctor.

5. In the role of the doctor, explain that the procedure revealed no abnormalities, but that the patient with the good right arm would receive conclusive lab results in two weeks.

Going Home Score

1. Have the patient with the good right arm return home tired from the Demerol.

2. Have the patient with the good right arm think about sleeping without ever actually sleeping.

3. Have the patient with the good right arm receive a call that he was going to have a colonoscopy in five days and have begin to prepare for his next medical procedure.

Tuesday Today: Colonoscopy

Preparation for Colonoscopy Score

1. For the five days before the procedure have the patient with the good right arm follow a low-residue diet free of seeds, nuts, vegetables with skins, or fiber.

2. Starting one day before the procedure, have the patient with the good right arm eat nothing at all and drink only clear liquids.

3. On that same day, have the patient drink, over the course of an hour, 42 ounces of a liquid that tastes slightly of coconut milk.

4. On the day of the procedure, have the patient with the good right arm drink another 42 ounces but stop drinking altogether three hours before the procedure.

Medical Paperwork Score (Redux)

1. In the role of the patient with the good right arm fill out the exact same paperwork five days later.

2. Complain about the redundant paperwork and the fact that there is a TV blaring over your head.

3. Retreat, grouchily, to the hallway to fill out the paperwork.

Annoying Nurse Score

1. In the role of a nurse, call the patient into a small room.

2. Criticize the way the patient with the good right arm has filled out the form.

3. Tell the patient with the good right arm that you will be taking his blood pressure to see how nervous he is.

4. Announce that that the blood pressure of the patient with the good right arm is 130 over 90, and make a joke that it could have been worse.

5. Tell the patient with the good right arm that he can leave.

6. Have the patient with the good right arm fume that rude nurses and loud televisions are the cause of any rise in his blood pressure.

Taking Off Clothes Score

1. Have the patient with the good right arm remove all of his clothes except for his royal blue socks.

2. Have the patient with the good right arm remove his clothes behind an imaginary curtain so that the audience can see he weighs 157 pounds and has a keloid scar in the middle of his chest.

3. Have the patient with the good right arm put on a blue and white checked hospital gown that opens in the back to reveal his hairy ass.

4. Have the patient with the good right arm place his clothes carefully in a transparent plastic bag.

5. Have the patient with the good right arm read Steven McCaffery’s book, Seven Pages Missing: Volume 1: Selected Texts 1969-1999 while he waits for the procedure to begin.

6. Have the patient with the good right arm smile while he reads the phrase “farm fallows function if I close my mouth to hear my eyes,” and then have him close his eyes.

7. Have a nurse wheel the patient with the good right arm to a procedure room that is numbered and is also named after a married couple who had donated money to the hospital.

Colonoscopy Procedure Score

1. In the role of a nurse, add a mixture of Demerol, morphine, and something that the patient with the good right arm hears as cervix into the IV tube of the patient with the good right arm.

2. Have the patient with the good right arm note when the sedatives begin to affect him and have him explain that if everyone took this sedative all the time, no-one would be tense and nothing would ever be accomplished.

3. Have the patient fall in and out of consciousness during the procedure as a doctor and a nurse insert a tube up his ass and look inside his colon.

4. Have the patient with the good right arm comment on the views of his colon as they appear on the screen, and have him ask questions about what he sees and otherwise carry on a jaunty conversation.

Post-Procedure Score

1. Wheel the patient, still talking, with the good right arm out of the procedure room.

2. Have a nurse summon his wife.

3. Have the same nurse tell the patient with the good right arm to fart to remove the air filling his body.

4. Have the patient with the good right arm explain that farting is one of his few skills before he begins to demonstrate that fact over and over again.

5. In the role of the doctor, explain that no abnormalities were found but give the patient with the good right arm instructions on how to ensure he is eating a high-fiber diet.

6. Have the patient with the good right arm wonder where the doctor had acquired a list of his usual diet.