“Ether Frolics" is a collection of eleven short stories that touch on the delivery of medical care, and five stories that stem from meddlesome government activity.
The early medical anasthetic we know as ether can be used to make people do silly things, and those watching them laugh. We can snicker at The Thousand Year Old Man, who honestly believes having medical insurance keeps him healthy. Or patients standing in a long line to get their noses rebuilt. Or at a school bus transporting one little girl to school. Or a children's value-added-tax regime. These stories do not belong on “Saturday Night Live,” because I would not expect twelve-year-olds to understand them. Many adults will understand the topics, appreciate the resemblance to modern news stories, and probably have some whopping tales of their own to tell.
