To increase awareness of Indigestion Awareness Month, which begins today, we will share some interesting factoids with you, our dear and trustworthy readers.
First: Indigestion Awareness Month begins today. It does not coincide with a calendar month, but rather begins on the date on which, in 1944, Winston Churchill became acutely aware of the problem of indigestion (by suffering an acute version of it himself for a few hours). He vowed that, after ending World War II, his next most important goal was to end indigestion. Thus was born Indigestion Awareness Month.
Some think indigestion a thing of the past. After all, nowadays we have much more deadly diseases like cancer. But others argue that indigestion affects almost everyone at one time or another in life, and therefore deserves greater respect as a disease. There is, furthermore, no vaccine against indigestion, probably because The Establishment keeps suppressing funds for its development in favour of things like “education.”
Among the common symptoms of indigestion are belching and gas. So if you’ve belched today, you might have indigestion.
With the letters in “indigestion,” one can make 271 distinct English words of various lengths. Using all the letters, one can make phrases like:
- No Dignities
- Ignited Ions
- I Signed Into
- Design Into I
- Tie-On Siding
- Is Toe Dining?
- I Dig Nest Ion
- Set In Indigo
…and a whole host of others, if you believe the anagrammer.1
The proper way to celebrate Indigestion Awareness Month is to ask your boss and coworkers the question, “How’s your digestion?” at least once a day. Then invite them to a “lunch meeting” and have them keep track of the number of times they chew each bite of food. The person with the highest score at the end of the luncheon wins. Give him a bottle of Pepto-Bismol as a prize. Then everyone belch to cheer him on. You might also consider averaging the number of chews per person and sending it to your boss.
“1957 Pepto Bismol ad,” by Pepto-Bismol. Public domain via Wikimedia Commons
- Lengthy fins we! Thyself new gin! Fleshy wing net. ↩
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