Joke Decoder (panel 16)

Spinal Pickup Lines

A favorite on campus.  Ironically, I really didn’t think it was that good.  Here we see the typical spinal pickup line at the local singles bar.  Instead of the lame, “What’s your sign?” the lame spinal version is, “What’s your coupled motion?”  This cartoon is referring to a biomechanical principle.  When the spine moves in a particular direction (eg. bends to the side), it has an automatic secondary motion, called a “coupled motion,” that happens as well (eg. rotation).  Note the bottle of CSF [short for Cerebral Spinal Fluid (see decoder panel 4)].

Side note:  A couple of weeks after this cartoon ran, I was sitting for my ICE examination.  One of the proctors for the test happened to be a Spinal Biomechanics instructor.  As I was taking the exam, she came up to me and whispered in my ear, “Mine is left lateral bending.”  ….What a complement!