2012-03-30
Explanation
This comic is a semi-autobiographical story about the narrator'''s experience with a barium swallow test -- a medical imaging procedure where the patient drinks a barium solution so that X-rays can capture images of the esophagus and stomach. The narrator describes the procedure to friends at a bar, noting that you drink a mystery liquid and then watch a video of it going down your throat. He compares this to "the medical equivalent of fraternity hazing," with escalating indignities: "Drink this mystery liquid. Now swallow this giant pill. Now these crystals which give you gas." (The asterisk notes "everything was fine.")
Afterward, the narrator notices something strange: he feels like he deserves a reward. He then has an epiphany about Pavlovian conditioning. His entire life, whenever something bad happened to him, he got an ice cream as consolation. This created an unconscious association between suffering and reward -- a conditioned response so deeply internalized that he didn'''t even realize it was there. He wonders whether this same mechanism explains why people are always suing each other: they'''ve been conditioned to expect a reward (monetary settlement) after experiencing something unpleasant.
The comic takes a personal anecdote and escalates it into a broader observation about human psychology and the litigation-happy culture. The Pavlovian reference is apt -- Ivan Pavlov'''s famous experiments showed that dogs could be conditioned to salivate at the sound of a bell -- and Weiner applies the same principle to explain a deeply ingrained human behavioral pattern.
The votey shows the narrator thinking "I wonder if I can sue my esophagus..." -- applying his own insight to his own situation in a self-aware but absurd loop, wanting compensation from his own body for the discomfort of the barium swallow.