ASK DR. BAUGHAN                                             September 24, 1999

A CURE FOR BOREDOM

“What’re you doing, man?”  --  “Nothing.”  --  “Can you get out of there?”  --“Yeah, Mom’s still working.”  --  “C’mon, then.”

James and Darren were bored.  Darren liked hanging around with James, because James could usually come up with something to do that broke the boredom.  They had known each other for 8 years, ever since kindergarten.  They met up behind the hamburger place.  “This way,” James said with a glint in his eye.  They headed off in the trees behind the stores.  Darren felt like a young warrior off on mission to test his courage and strength.  The adrenalin started pumping out of the glands that sit on top of his kidneys.  He felt more alert.  His muscles were warm and ready.  He could feel the beating of his heart.  He felt hyper-alert.  Much better than sitting home.

They sneaked up behind a building with the air-conditioning unit out back.  They cased the area for cops and adults.  No one around.  The suspense was better than a movie.  James took off his back-pack and took some rags out of it.  “What’re you doing?” Darren asked.  “When I get these soaked with the stuff from the air-conditioner, put them over your nose and mouth and breath deep.” James said.  “What does it do?”  “It gives a wicked rush like you’ve never had before.”  Darren hesitated, “Jeez, I don’t know.”  “Scared?” challenged James.  One reason Darren liked James was that James didn’t seem to be afraid of anything.  Darren hated being afraid.  He hated that little kid feeling.  “All right, but you first.”  James laughed and clucked like a chicken a few times.

When James had the rags soaked, he put them to his face.  The fluorocarbons in the Freon rushed into his lungs, down into the tiny air pockets where air meets blood.  But there wasn’t much air this time.  The molecules that human blood had never encountered before this century dissolved in his blood and began spreading out through his body.  The red blood cells that carry oxygen had no oxygen molecules to pick up.  The brain that needs a steady flow of oxygen immediately noticed the change.  It sent out the alarm signals that it was programmed to send for thousands of years –Alert!  Alert!  Suffocation danger!  The heart started pumping more vigorously to spread around the oxygen there was.  James experienced an intense excitement.  Then the freon molecules hit the brain cells.  The brain cells took in this chemical before they could tell what it would do.  As it began disrupting the intricate chemical processes in the cells, more alarm signals fired.  Nerves fired off erratically and chemical safeguards tried to eject the foreign chemicals from the cell.  James experienced a wave of electricity and heat from his head to his toes.  Darren couldn’t tell if he was having a seizure or what until he collapsed on the ground and said, “Oh man!  Light speed!  Your turn.”

Darren soaked more rags and breathed the fumes.  The chemicals coursed through his body and played the same toxic tune in his brain.  Just as he was ready to jump to light speed, though, the fluorocarbons blocked some of the signals to his heart and paralyzed some of the muscle fibers in his heart.  His heart started quivering erratically, so that it wasn’t pumping even the oxygen-poor blood anywhere.  James didn’t noticed Darren die because he was passed out.  When he awoke, he didn’t feel particularly guilty or sad, because enough of his brain cells were knocked off that his IQ dropped 50 points.  He wasn’t offended when other kids called him “retard,” because he did not know what it meant.  Neither James or Darren were bored anymore.

Somethings we should be afraid of.  Inhaling fumes is unpredictable.  Death and brain damage can occur with the first try.  It is not necessarily dose-related.  How do you measure a dose of a soggy rag or a paper bag?