Sheldon wrote:
>
> On Sep 6, 5:19�pm, Mark Thorson > wrote:
> >
> > I call this form of insanity foodiformia.
>
> I've got an egg piercer shaped like an egg.
> I've got a holiday gravy boat shaped like a turkey.

Looks like Stage I foodiformia, likely harmless
and generally curable.

If the eyes of the turkey gravy boat are
a contrasting color to the body, rather than
just being an impression in the china or
earthenware body, that's Stage II foodiformia,
a much more serious condition. Psychoanalysis
or behavior modification therapy are recommended.

Now, if you're like koko, she's an obvious case
of Stage IV foodiformia, the most serious form
of the disease. She didn't say so, but I can
assure you that she talks to these foodiform items
with faces on them while she uses them. (That
doesn't mean she hears them talking back, although
she may. If the latter, that's on a different scale,
the schizophrenia scale.) That is diagnostic for
Stage IV, and you can recognize it in an instant
when you look at a person's collection of foodiform
objects. If none of them have faces, it's probably
harmless. If they only have impressed or molded eyes
consistent with the dimensions of the eyes on the
real animals that they represent, the prognosis
is still good.

It's when they have out-of-proportion "cartoon"
eyes in a contrasting color that you make a
diagnosis of Stage III. I'm deeply skeptical of
every diagnosis of Stage III. I think nearly
all of them are Stage IV. It's like if these were
levels for describing cocaine addiction, and
Stage III was owning a crack pipe and Stage IV
was smoking crack, how many true Stage III's would
you have? I think nearly all of your so-called
Stage III's are in fact Stage IV's.

Unfortunately, the prognosis is bleak. There are
very few known recoveries from Stage III or Stage IV
foodiformia. In every case, it was a woman stripped
of her collection of foodiform tools in a bitter
divorce, followed by massive self-medication therapy.
The literature is sparse with regard to clinical
outcomes, massive self-medication with alcohol
(or more advanced drugs) seems to be the only
reliable therapy.