Jane Orie [SATIRE]

Jane Orie's medical team announced an unexpected press conference at Thursday evening, on the topic "to discuss State Senator Jane Orie's medical condition". Although the somewhat vague description invited speculation, all those present were surprised by the blockbuster announcement.



Dr. Cyril Wecht, world-famous medical forensics expert, began to speak. "I have been treating Jane Orie, along with a team of specialists, for an unusual phenomenon. Senator Orie has been suffering from an unusual compartmental compression issue in the parietal lobes of her brain, in both hemispheres."


The noted physician showed several slides identifying the affected region, located just behind the ears on both sides of the cranium. Then he said, "Take a look at these two initial pictures of the patient; she seems relaxed, rested, and fairly pleasant. The area around the eyes seems relaxed and normally roundish, as we'd expect.

Dr. Wecht said, "One of our medical students found this photo on Jane's facebook page and brought it to our attention. It looks like the first photo we have that shows the early signs of deterioration." Jane Orie, who had been sitting silently the whole while, said, "I just needed to go from flat to fabulous, if you know what I mean." The reporters in the room didn't know what she meant by that and started shifting uncomfortably in the quiet room.

Dr. Wecht said, "The continuation of slides in chronological order seems to show a progressive swelling of the brain; the head actually looks bigger and bigger in the back, the eyebrows become more pronounced, the face looks more distressed."


"What I'd like you to notice", he said, "is the apparent edema of the brain coupled with increasing inability to keep her fingers straight, they seem to keep curling up. Also the mouth is changing, it seems more tightened, almost feral, as opposed to the initial wide, natural smile. These indications led us down a neurological path that turned out to be a red herring.


Dr. Wecht said, "In these next photos we see that the condition progresses. The size of the head, the tension around the occipital lobes, the evident stress, more twitching in the jaw. Something was progressing in there and we couldn't tell what it was. The literature was of no help.

The doctor smiled. "Then we got our big break, and I have to tell you it wasn't me. A medical student approaches me on a weekend during the criminal trial and says, 'Cyril, I can't tell you why, just give me ten minutes with Jane. Trust me.' So I figured, why not?"

"So the young doctor goes in there, I hear muffled voices, and then a short cry like from a pain so I'm about to open the door when all of a sudden I hear laughter, Jane is laughing and she hasn't laughed for months. Let me show you this picture of what Jane looked like going into Court that next Monday morning."

"As you can see, the head is of normal size and shape again, the tension around the eyes and jaw is gone, and although she looks quite tired from her ordeal she's behaving much more like her old self again. You could balance a beer can on that cranium. And we owe the solution to our young colleague, Annie Bratton."

All eyes turned to the young woman, who leaned nervously toward the microphone. "I kept hearing Sen. Orie mumble to herself, 'flat to fabulous', over and over, and when I saw her car had custom license plates "FLAT2FAB", it had to mean something. So I Googled it, and when I typed in 'flat to fabulous' I knew I had the solution on my screen."

Bratton clicked her computer and a website image filled the screen. "Flat to Fabulous", she said, is the advertising tagline for a website called BumpIt.com, which is owned by Big Happy Hair Inc. She took a few plastic clips out of a bag and showed them to reporters. "A BumpIt is a plastic clip that clings tightly to a woman's head and produces an artificial bump of hair, making her seem taller and her hair seem to have more volume."

"When I went in to see Senator Orie, I explained to Jane that I knew she wore a BumpIt and I asked her to take it off. I suspected the BumpIt she was wearing was way too small for her head. We had a tough time getting it off, she even yelled out a bit, but as soon as it popped off, she felt immediate relief from her symptoms."

Dr. Wecht spoke again, "We've looked into this. The BumpIt factory has recently relocated to Mexico, and what was once a size-12 BumpIt in the United States became a 12-centimeter BumpIt at the Mexican plant, and that change to metric units was the source of the whole problem. Senator Jane Orie's strained physical condition, her changed behavioral patterns, her headaches and inattention to detail, they were all caused by a mixup with the metric BumpIt - a direct consequence of NAFTA and the One-Worlders' decision to embrace European standards. Nobody's suggesting that they intended to do this to Senator Jane Orie, at least not so far. I'm just saying, there's a cause and an effect. No court would consider her responsible for her actions while she had all that trauma going on. Jane Orie has been injured, and now she is cured."

Senator Jane Orie's lawyer spoke for the first time. "Given this evidence, and Dr. Wecht's eminent expertise, we feel confident that a motion for judicial review will be granted, and we expect Senator Jane Orie to be exonerated on the basis of her medical condition. We're also considering our position regarding the liability and responsibility borne by the Big Happy Hair corporation, as well as TV Guide which carried their advertisement".

And so it goes.

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