Sometimes, the weirdest things can set us off. Earlier today, Sara tweeted that she'd written a letter in rhyme, saying she was "#outofcontrol". I asked whether it was Alexandrine, Limerick, iambic pentameter, or something else, and that set my mind to composing "random diabetes limericks"...
Starting with...
A woman who had diabetes
Says her doc told her, "Never eat Wheaties.
The starches and fructose
Will spike up your glucose
And violate national treaties."
After coming up with the starting couplet of
A man who had lived with Type 1
For more years than the Earth saw the sun
it took me a while to finish it with
Made insulin patches
In mountainous batches
To cover one cinnamon bun.
(and "cover"'s a terrible pun).
Of course, I don't want to spread MISinformation, so I had to follow that with
When his blood glucose meter said "HI"
He looked up at the stars in the sky
Drew up an injection
To measur'd perfection
And plunged it into his right thigh.
Meanwhile,
There once was a lady named May
Who tested but one time a day
She feared 'fore a meal
What the meter'd reveal
So now she's just wasting away.
and
There once was a man at Gristedes1
Who lived with Type 2 diabetes.
His doctor said, "Norman,
Just take this metformin
Before you go eating your Wheaties."
That's waaaayyyy too much Wheaties here. "Breakfast of Champions", my fructose.
Does anything else rhyme with "diabetes"? Hmm.
'Twas said that the Greek, Archimedes
Found a cure for Type 1 diabetes.
It involved patient urine,
Some linen from Turin,
And numerous prayers and entreaties.
Umm... rrrriiiiiiight. I'm pretty sure Turin was not called "Turin" -- or even "Torino" -- when Archimedes was alive. (Besides, wasn't he a mathematician?)
A spaceman was DX'd Type 1
Whilst en route from the Earth to the Sun
He said, "Jim'ny, I'm fried
'Cos my pancreas died
And my ship's on a glycogen run."
Hmm... I think this deserves to be, er, injected into the sun and heat-disintegrated.
The partners of Wilford and Cletis
Advise those with adult diabeetus
The meter is free
If you'll only agree
To not let the 'beetus defeat us.
After having spent way too much time trying to work phrases such as "histologic rejection", "metabolic correction", and "effects deleterious" into rhyme, I think the exercise needs to be stopped... for now...
And for what it's worth,
Alexandrine's a type of hexameter
That replaces iambic pentameter
Six feet to the line
Are one more, French opine
Than in English poetic parameter.
1 Gristedes is a local supermarket chain.
