LAUGH NOW: I AM THE MODEL OF PERFECTION
By Jeremy Ebersole, columnist of the Etownian, Elizabethtown College´s Award-Winning Student Newspaper

Pretty bold statement, huh? No one is perfect. We all have our little foibles. You may bite your nails when you´re nervous until they´re raw and bleeding. You may never wash your hands of shower before going on the big dates you go on every weekend. You may not be able to restrain yourself from creating bold and controversial thoughts in every one of your newspaper columns. Hey, believe it or not, you may still even yet support the war in Iraq. The point is that we all have faults…almost all of us.

There are two notable exceptions to this rule: Abercrombie models and me. Now Abercrombie models are just naturally perfect. Like Hansel McDonald, Derek Zoolander or J.P. Prewitt, these gifted individuals were born with a perfect bone structure and are thus able to spend their entire lives being professionally really, really good-looking. And even if they weren´t perfect, we would all change ourselves to become like them anyway, thus returning them to perfection once again. But you already know all that.

What about me? How is Jeremy Ebersole perfect? I can´t be perfect you think; I don´t drink, read Maxim, go tanning or play guitar, and we that cool people do all of those things. Time for a little culture shock.

Take a mental trip with me to a land most of you have never thought about, a land iugnored by your government for hundreds of years, a land with towering mountains, lush jungles and pristine beaches. Welcome to South America. That´s right ---there actually are a few million people in the real deep south who are also called Americans.

Our journey takes us to Ecuador, a Nevada-sized nation of 13-million people split down the middle by the majestic Andes Mountains. In the northern region of the mountains lies the small village of Iluman. This is where I became perfect. Shockingly, I was not born perfect; I´ve actually only been perfect for about a month now. It was all the result of an exciting ceremony involving everything from weeds to roses. And you too can be perfect if you want. I´m really nothing special; I was just the chosen one. All you have to do is survive.

Now you must know that almost 95 percent of Ecuador is Roman Catholic. However, there is a significant number of Ecuadorians who practice native religions. In these religions, there are healers certified by the national medical board call yachacs, analogous to the shamans of Native (North) American religion. These yachacs perform a ceremony on those in need of healing in order to balance out their spirit. They rid you of evil and improve your daily life, thus making you, in my own words, perfect. I had the exciting opportunity to take part in one of these native healing ceremonies recently. Allow me to enchant you with my tale.

First, I took it all off. Nothing like stripping in front of all your school mates and professor to get you ready for healing. I actually had a bathing suit on, but that´s not important. The ceremony began as I held out my hands and watched the yachac pour approximately 150 different substances into my cupped hands. I then rubbed these substances all over my body, including my hair. Now they don´t tell you what the substances are. I managed to gather that cologne, honey and perhaps the blood of a young lamb were among the things I rubbed deep into my pores (Just kidding about that last one).

Then the yachac swirled some alcohol around in his mouth and spewed it all over me. Next, he mixed the alcohol with chewed-up rose petals and spat that as well. Next comes the fun part. By fun, I mean deadly. Imagine poison ivy…all over your body…but worse. Let me introduce you to the stinging nettle. I think these plans originate deep in the depths of hell where they are inseminated with the most painful poison the demons could create. They are really just big weeds with tiny needles all over them. So in order to heal me, the yachac beat me with the stinging nettle for about five minutes. I was especially pleased to see the giant red welts all over my chest. Oh yea, the evil is trying to break out little by little! I wouldn´t be surprised is they used the same method for torture hundred of years ago.

The rest of it is a kind of a blur. I just remember the excruciating pain. The next part was kind of cool, though. He lit a fire under my feet and told me to let the smoke engulf me. This was easier when they put a large cloth over my head and told me not to breathe. He also shook an egg around my body. (If the egg doesn´t find the evil, they use cuy. Look it up in your Spanish dictionary.) Sticks and holy rocks were also used.

The final step in the healing process, as with all healing processes and action movies, involved fire. Like Dhalsim from "Street Fighter", the yachac had acquired the ability to blow fire. Now in "Street Fighter," the fire hurts people. However, in Ecuador, catching fire is good. My arm hair is actually starting to grow back, but you can still see the singe marks if you look real close.

My final instructions were not to eat spicy food or chocolate and now to have sexual relations for three whole days. It was tough, let me tell you: giant welts are a huge turn-on for women, and without any hair, I looked just like an Abercrombie model.

So I left in a lot of pain. Fortunately, after a cold bath and two-on-one aloe rub down. I was back to my normal self, except more perfect. I have figured out how it all works. It really does make you feel better, if through nothing more than simple psychology. For the rest of my life I will think, "Wow, if I can do that, I can do anything. If I can survive thousands of poisonous needles in my skin, I can do it all." Suddenly becoming a Hollywood superstar seems like child´s play.

They say what doesn´t kill you makes you stronger. That is why it works: it makes any other problem in your life pale in comparison to the pain of the needles. And when you´re done, you look back at it and laugh, even write a humor column about it. And besides, now I have no evil spirits; they came out with the needles.

So what is the moral of the story? The only way to true happiness is to put down those self-help books and pictures of loved ones and break out the brass knuckles and whips. Masochism is back in style. Go ahead, beat yourself up like Jim Carrey in "Liar, Liar"; it´s for your own good…unless you´re a model. I wouldn´t want you to ruin your perfect bone structure.

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