Pain For Measure

The Deep Hurting Institute is dedicated to researching the human brain's capacity to receive and interpret pain signals. Each month the facility runs a new series of tests on brave volunteers, and for $14.95 a month members of the Deep Hurting Fan Club receive a glossy poster-sized printout of the results.

Please enjoy this complimentary installment of the Deep Hurting Fan Club. If you decide to join within the next two months, we'll send you a special gift! *

(* Depending on supplies, either a refurbished 1'x1' section of carpet with barely noticeable water stains or an XFL Football Phone)

Stimulus	Intensity Rating (Scale of 1 to 10)	Most Common Description Of Pain
Palm Placed On Two Hundred Degree Surface For Three Seconds	3	A sensation that something isn't quite right begins to intensify, then end just as the recoil reflex kicks in. Comparable to being tricked into masturbating a rabbit.
Pinky Finger Savaged In Old Fashioned Hand-Cranked Pencil Sharpener	9.2	You know how you get those little flaps of dead skin on the sides of your nails sometimes, and when you go to pull them off they yank away strips of living skin and you start bleeding? Like pulling a thousand of those off at once. NOT recommended!
Surgical Needle Slowly Puncturing Both Nostrils And The Cartilage In The Bridge Of The Nose	8.1	A playful mixture of horror and agony, like getting a severe stomach ache after eating a hot dog then learning that the hot dog contained a winning lottery ticket that had been dipped in cancer.
Punch In Stomach From Muhammad Ali	1.4	Just hurts on the inside, where the sympathy and sadness are.
Crushed In A Trash Compactor	10	Wait, wait! I changed my mind! Please let me go ho-
Eating A Moderately Spicy Chili With Hot Sauce	0.6	Makes my tongue go numb, which is more frustrating than painful since the chili's pretty good.
Knee Held In Large Hadron Collider While The Device Accelerates The Heck Out Of Particles	8.4	Far worse than having my knee shoved into the Tiny Hadron Collider.
Point-Blank Blast From Firehose In The Shin	6.6	Pretty much matches my fantasies of being kicked by the dude from Terminator 2 while he's still in mercury form.
Car Battery Connected To Tongue Via Jumper Cables	7.3	Those clamps pinch like crazy!
Pillow Dropped On Head From Height Of Ten Feet	0.1	Nowhere near as bad as that trash compactor, though I think the pillow might have loosened a few of my stitches.
Tied To Railroad Track, Run Over By Hovercraft	1.7	A whimsical romp through a pebble-filled wind tunnel after escaping an execution.
The Newest Zelda Game Gets Anything Less Than A Perfect Score Average On Metacritic	10	Every cell in my body screams for the sweet release of death, and the rest of my cells become speakers that amplify and repurpose the sounds to obliterate my soul.
Ejected Into The Vacuum Of Space Without A Spacesuit	2	Lungs throb after holding my breath for several minutes, but aside from a few arm muscles that ache from doing the doggy paddle and some light re-entry burns on my knees I'm okay.
Waking Up In The Middle Of The Night, Trying To Find Bathroom In The Pitch Black, Accidentally Stubbing Toe On Ark Of The Covenant	8.9	I'm not sure it's possible to accurately describe "my toe just shriveled up and turned into a ghost" without screaming incoherently and clawing my cheeks.
	10	AAARGH?!
Watching Helplessly In A Vampire Bite-Induced Stupor While The Lab Is Sealed Shut For All Time With State Og Brand Cement	WHAT? CAN'T MOVE MY HEAD	HELLO? WHO'S FILLING OUT THIS FORM?
How Does He Know I'm Filling This Out? How Are His Answers Getting Into My Head?	DREAM THIS MUST BE A DREAM	NO, REAL. REVENGE. SEALED SHUT NO AIR. MIND MUST ESCAPE. IS THAT? PHONE JACK YES NOW I SEE
What The Heck Is Going On Down There? Why Did The Phone Boards Just Go Bonkers?

– Dennis "Corin Tucker's Stalker" Farrell (@DennisFarrell)