Hyper Hospital

More tales have been clamored for, and more there shall be.

Many of us get sick, and most have endured the occasional hospital visit. Most of the time we leave better off than we came in. This is not one such hospital.

My friend Bill and his brother Eric devised a game called Hyper Hospital in their collective misbegotten youth. The first ingredient was their little brother Matthew. Matthew was hyper enough (he once performed a spirited dance for us in the living room that he called the Russell Dance, wearing absolutely nothing but a pair of his mom's panties ... on his head).

Anyway, they would stuff Matthew full of Twinkies and Ding Dongs - they may have even had him simply eat cane sugar on occasions - until he was full of sugar and bouncing off the walls.

Then he was taken to the Hyper Hospital.

The Hyper Hospital was just the basement of their house, which had toys scattered everywhere and about 6 or 7 good sized metal support beams. On cue, the lights would be turned out, and Bill and Eric would proceed to whale the tar out of Matthew with hard plastic baseball bats, or anything good and solid. Matthew would start screaming and running around, terrified in the pitch black and trying to fend off blows from two older brothers. Ultimately, he would run smack into one of the support beams, which pretty much ended the game.

As of the date of this writing, The Hyper Hospital has not been admitted to the American Association of Accredited Hospitals or the New York State Hospital Association.