Speaking of dinner table conversation, it was determined a number of years ago that I had a couple of problamatic cysts on my ovaries, which inconveniently and painfully, according to my hormone levels, bled into my body cavity once a month. The doctor described one as the size of a grapefruit and the other as an orange.

I speculated that it was odd that doctors always seem to compare these things to fruit, to which my husband suggested that it was easier in our culture to discuss fruit at the dinner table than to bring up the topic of monkey's heads.