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Americans love holidays. Look at the Fourth of July. Everyone merrily stocks up on beer and firecrackers, one of the most ill-conceived partnerships imaginable in holiday celebrations. (Drink beer, set off incendiary devices, visit hospital, learn to write with prosthetic fingers.) But while the 4thclaims to be a day that's all about America, we are overlooking a holiday that celebrates what's truly American: our obsession with our bodies, our devotion to our pets (particularly cats in this instance), our love of science (as long as it's gross), and our compulsion to send greeting cards for the most obscure occasions. Yes, I am talking about National Hairball Awareness Day!

This important holiday is on April 27. What?, you're exclaiming, I missed it again? That's because those snobs at Hallmark just can't bring themselves to do what every cat can do (and usually does under the table in the middle of a dinner party)-cough up something to commemorate National Hairball Awareness Day.

Prominently displayed were nearly a dozen bezoars, the technical word for what-your-cat-harfs-up. Here's a little history you may find interesting: the term "bezoar" comes from the Latin Felineus Upchuckus, which is what all the Latin lads used to yell at Caesar's cats, so enraging the notoriously thin-skinned emperor that he had his centurions round up the errant cat taunters and toss them into the Coliseum to go one-on-one with the really big cats, the lions. "Bezoar" is the sound the lions made as they coughed up the sandals and togas of the unfortunate taunters. As is the case so often in history, the term stuck. Hence the common saying, "That tuna casserole was so disgusting I nearly bezoared."

But back to the Museum. As it turns out, bezoars are not just a kitty thing. The Museum displayed hairballs from a steer, two oxen, three cows, a calf, horse, and a chicken. But brace yourself-there are human hairballs as well. They're most often found in children and young women. So hear my plea: Parents, for the love of God, gather your precious little ones around you, hold your teenage girls close, treasure your moments together because you never know when a hairball could be the image carved on your child's headstone: Here lies little Angie, the inscription will say, right below the image of a killer hairball, slain by a crazed bezoar.

Such a fate nearly struck a 12-year-old girl. She was rushed to the hospital, where a hairball the size of a nerf football (this is the technical measurement) was successfully removed from her stomach. And included in the Museum's display as a warning. According to the Museum, "the parents claimed she had been eating her hair since the age of 6."

OK, parents, here's an idea: if you notice little Madison or Annabelle digging into a big plate of hair, for God's sake, ACT! Snatch that serving of tasty tresses away from her and scream, do you want to end up in the hospital with a bezoar the size of a damn nerf football? That'll teach her. Sometimes tough love is what they need.

But hairballs strike more than just kids and sweet young things. Consider this: Extensive snacking can bring on a bezoar the likes of which you won't soon forget. This was the case for a Philadelphia man in his 30s, whom we shall simply refer to as Mr. Big Stupid Head. Mr. BSH sat his butt down and ate 10 bags of gummy bears in 10 hours. Maybe there was one of those long Ken Burns documentaries on TV and the guy lost count of the number of gummies he'd managed to pack away. Not surprisingly, a thousand pounds of gummy bears ingested in a few hours don't what you call "melt away." Quite the opposite. They formed a monster gummy bezoar that Mr. BSH had to have surgically removed. I hope he learned an important lesson (which would be: never watch PBS while compulsively snacking.)

Much to my disappointment, the Museum did not display the gummy bear bezoar, but it did have what it referred to as an "unusual hairball" that's over a hundred years old. It was contributed to the Museum in 1897 by a Washington, DC resident who "removed it from the craw of a young chicken." It seems that Mister Cluck was a family pet, and hung around the other family pet, a dog, "for which it formed a strong attachment." Uh-oh, no story can be good that features a cross-species "strong attachment" that results in an historic hairball.

The chicken pecked the dog, which is an odd way to exhibit a "strong attachment" but perhaps it's the fowl equivalent of a big wet sloppy kiss. Mister Cluck pecked its little heart out and then stopped eating. The owner, frantic at the thought of his beloved chicken starving to death (obviously, barbeque sauce had not yet been invented), did what any of us would do: performed surgery on it in the back yard and removed the hairball from its craw. Miraculously, the chicken survived. Equally miraculously, the Museum hung onto the truly foul fowl bezoar for over a century.

For those of you not fortunate enough to reside within driving distance of the National Museum of Health and Medicine, you can go on-line and check out their website, which features a link to "Hairballs: Myths and Realities behind some Medical Curiosities" at www.nmhm.washingtondc.museum/exhibits/virtual/hairball.html. Just put down the bag of gummy bears before you start surfing the site and you should be fine.

And please, when April 27 rolls around, remember your loved ones with a tasteful National Hairball Awareness Day card. If Hallmark still hasn't woken up to the marketing potential of this grand day and put out a line of cards, you can always make one yourself, maybe something like this:

Roses are red,

Violets are blue.

You are so great

I'd cough up a bezoar for you.

Now all it needs are a couple of nice illustrations, and you're done. Happy N-HAD!

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