No, Dear Reader, you have not caught your interlocutor, the Happy Pessimist, in an orthographical error. Perish the thought. I know how to spell phlebotomy better than you (unless, of course, you won the Okefenokee Regional Spelling Bee in third grade). No, I am pointing out the logical consequence of the adoption of one of the great technological accomplishments of our collapsing civilization.

            The savants at the Rochester Institute of Technology have developed a toilet seat which measures the blood pressure, heart rate, and blood oxygenation level of the victim, Imean patient, seated upon it. It is battery-powered, waterproof, wireless, and preprogrammed. An entrepreneurial RIT graduate has set up a firm called Heart Health Intelligence to commercialize this boon to mankind.

            As an initial matter, this device will have a beneficial psychological effect, both improving patient care and relieving the stress on physicians and their surrogates (nurse practitioners, physician’s assistants, witch doctors, and others of their ilk). The medical professional will now be able to say to a patient “sit your ass down” without fraying the doctor patient relationship or being slapped with a lawsuit.

            But I’m sure it will get better. What happens when you enter the physician’s office? You are greeted by a “health care provider” who takes your “vital signs” which are precisely the quantities measured by the new improved butt support. And what else happens? You are frequently sent to the “lab” where a highly trained technician stabs you in the arm with a hypodermic the size of a turkey baster and sucks out your precious bodily fluid.

            This last step can be easily eliminated. The new toilet seat can be equipped with an upward-pointing needle attached to a small vacuum pump. Then, the process of sitting will automatically plunge the needle into the gluteus maximus of the shitter, sorry, sitter, and suck out the required sample.

            The only obstacle to the adoption of this improvement that I can see is the likely reaction of the patient, who, immediately upon sitting down, will shriek “ARRGH!” and will leap off the seat, thus interrupting the blood flow. Fortunately, this difficulty can be overcome by adding yet another piece of technology to the toilet seat: an elastic harness which automatically wraps itself around the patient with a vise-like grip and holds him/her/it down on the seat. The elastic harness can be sold separately to S & M aficionados, thus providing an extra source of income to the overworked and underpaid physician.

            Or to me.