Speaking of Operations | Page 3

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This Etext prepared by Kirk Pearson

"Speaking of Operations--"
by Irvin S. Cobb

Respectfully dedicated to two classes:
Those who have already been operated on Those who have not yet been
operated on

Now that the last belated bill for services professionally rendered has
been properly paid and properly receipted; now that the memory of the
event, like the mark of the stitches, has faded out from a vivid red to a
becoming pink shade; now that I pass a display of adhesive tape in a
drug-store window without flinching--I sit me down to write a little
piece about a certain matter--a small thing, but mine own--to wit, That
Operation.
For years I have noticed that persons who underwent pruning or
remodeling at the hands of a duly qualified surgeon, and survived, like
to talk about it afterward. In the event of their not surviving I have no
doubt they still liked to talk about it, but in a different locality. Of all
the readily available topics for use, whether among friends or among
strangers, an operation seems to be the handiest and most dependable.
It beats the Tariff, or Roosevelt, or Bryan, or when this war is going to
end, if ever, if you are a man talking to other men; and it is more
exciting even than the question of how Mrs. Vernon Castle will wear
her hair this season, if you are a woman talking to other women.
For mixed companies a whale is one of the best and the easiest things

to talk about that I know of. In regard to whales and their peculiarities
you can make almost any assertion without fear of successful
contradiction. Nobody ever knows any more about them than you do.
You are not hampered by facts. If someone mentions the blubber of the
whale and you chime in and say it may be noticed for miles on a still
day when the large but emotional creature has been moved to tears by
some great sorrow coming into its life, everybody is bound to accept
the statement. For after all how few among us really know whether a
distressed whale sobs aloud or does so under its breath? Who, with any
certainty, can tell whether a mother whale hatches her own egg her own
self or leaves it on the sheltered bosom of a fjord to be incubated by the
gentle warmth of the midnight sun? The possibilities of the proposition
for purposes of informal debate, pro and con, are apparent at a glance.
The weather, of course, helps out amazingly when you are meeting
people for the first time, because there is nearly always more or less
weather going on somewhere and practically everybody has ideas about
it. The human breakfast is also a wonderfully good topic to start up
during one of those lulls. Try it yourself the next time the