The Tyranny of Tradition

Apparently, hitting yourself in the face with a hammer isn’t safe after all.  An extensive study done by researchers at Harvard University claims that striking yourself with repeated blows to the face with a hammer could potentially lead to terrible side effects.  The surprising study, done with 100 small children over a five year period of repeated daily strikings, claims that beating your own head in can lead to loss of appetite, excessive bleeding, blindness, holes in your face, rapid eye movement, death and restless leg syndrome.

According to Harvard Scientist Mark Cranium, “this research should prove, beyond a shadow of a doubt, that hitting oneself with a hammer in the face is a bad idea under most circumstances.”

However, there was some good news for people who enjoy the dull thud of a hammer hitting their skulls.   The research showed no connection between repeated hammer strikes to heart disease or Type 2 Diabetes.   Also, the Harvard study failed to address the effects of eating hammers, so most likely that is still safe.

The study itself was called into question by researchers for Ace Hardware Store’s Corporate Office who did a separate study and arrived at very different results.  The hardware chain found no link between hitting yourself in the face with a hammer and any negative outcomes.  As a matter of fact, the Ace study found a direct correlation between two hammer blows a day and a longer, healthier life.

In spite of the recent warnings, many Americans continue to bang away at their faces.  “That Harvard government ain’t gonna tell me what to do,” said Beau Clemens, a recent recipient of America’s first state-subsidized face transplant.

Dr. Dean Sluggish, a noted expert from the Southern California Institute of Facial Hammering, also believes that hammering one’s face is not just a personal problem, it’s an environmental problem.  “Think of the thousands of trees cut down, the thousands of pounds of metal, the carbon footprint made by smashing one skull to a pulp.  In order to turn one face into a bloody mess it requires enough fuel to run a Hummer for 3 minutes.  Obviously, there are better uses of nature’s bounty,” he wrote in an editorial that accompanied the study.

“To a man who hits themselves in the face with a hammer, everything is a nail,” added Dr. Sluggish in an attempt to say something quotable.