Lonnicillan
Recent rumors that I picked up on my rumorolla indicate that a rogue self-proclaimed “doctor” in Kentucky has been able to synthesize a new antibiotic out of an eggroll and cedar wood chips, using solar cells from a broken calculator to power the reaction.
Dr. Lonny’s claims that his new antibiotic, which he calls Lonnicillan, is not only stronger and safer than all current antibiotics, but it’s also much cheaper to manufacture. Unfortunately, that only takes into account the raw materials and labor. The payment for Dr. Lonny’s permission to manufacture Lonnicillan makes it about eight to ten times as expensive as other existing antibiotics.
What made Dr. Lonny try to extort so much money from pharmacists, doctors, and random sick people, rather than just working for the good of all mankind? Well, Dr. Lonny has never been a big fan of mankind. Sure, he’ll make a cool new antibiotic if he had a few hours to kill, and if it turns out to be the best antibiotic ever made, then so be it. But Dr. L has to put Dr. L first, and everyone else is a distant seventh at best.
Don’t try to steal the formula or the blank, signed permission slips that he has left on his desk. They’re so inviting and tempting, but we should not give in to temptation, especially if it leads to us bootlegging a patented antibiotic formula. It would be perfectly legal if we had the permission slip, and it would be so easy to make — I mean, who doesn’t have wood chips and eggrolls lying around the house just waiting to be put to some life-saving use?
But it would mean stealing the permission slips from Dr. Lonny, and that’s just wrong. Stealing pieces of paper just to save a few thousand lives is hardly the way we should be doing business, and so we won’t. Consider this our official word to all employees: anyone caught stealing Dr. Lonny’s Lonnicillan permission slips will be given two straight weeks of detention. And no video game playing!
Of course, the rumors of Lonnicillan recently being invented in Kentucky are still rumors, after all. If there was any definitive proof, scientific or biblical, I’m sure we would have heard more about it by now than a few rumors spread from one gondolier to another. So maybe there’s nothing to the story after all.
But if experience has taught me anything–and I don’t think it has–then I know that where there’s smoke, there’s some type of smoke generating object that is the source of the smoke. Sometimes fire, sometimes a smoke machine, sometimes an old Chevy Nova that’s on its last legs and shouldn’t have really passed emissions last year but the mechanic was a friend of the owner and so he did him a favor, even if it might be destroying the environment in the process. Yes, all this means that I have faith in Dr. Lonny, and I believe that Lonnicillan exists right now, at this very moment, somewhere in a little improvised chemistry lab out in Kentucky.
God bless you, Lonnicillan.