Jason has killed a lot of folks with a lot of different tools. His victims may wonder, “Who is this man? And why is he murdering me?” Meanwhile, we the viewers want to know, “What is that tool he’s using? And what’s its history?”

Wonder no longer.

Today: Syringe

As used by Jason in: Friday the 13 Part VIII: Jason Takes Manhattan

Victim(s): Gang Banger 1

Nobody likes getting a shot. But also, nobody likes getting shot. Now pretend you have to choose one or the other. See? Shots aren’t that bad. (That clever word joke has inspired me to write a book where a killer “shoots” people with an injection of molten copper that he got by melting bullets. “.44 caliber… 10ccs… 1 chance of survival… 0 if you don’t already have liquid metal for blood… Sharpshooter!”) The earliest syringes date back to ancient Rome, where they were used to treat medical complications. Additionally, many Romanologists agree that “Roman Syringe” would have been a good title for an “In Utero”-era Nirvana b-side.

A syringe doesn’t necessarily include a needle – “Syringe” merely refers to the body of the tool, including a plunger, barrel and nozzle. In ancient Egypt, for example, primitive syringes were used to suck cataracts off of people’s eyes. In fact, before the advent of syringes, medical licensing exams included a hickey test that judged a doctoral candidate’s oral suction capacity, as cataracts had to be removed via traditional mouth suckage. In the liquid substance industry, hoses are attached to syringes, which are then used to draw liquid substances out of barrels.

DID YOU KNOW THAT union policy dictates that all syringe liquid substance-drawing assignments be based on the seniority of the team member? A 35-yearer might get to syringe out the barrel of chocolate syrup. The 5-yearer probably has to syringe out the barrel of tomato juice (I wanted to say scorpion eggs, but they shovel those). DO YOU KNOW WHAT kind of factory uses those ingredients? SOMEONE TOLD ME it was a shoe factory. DO YOU THINK they’d let me taste some of the chocolate syrup? I’M hungry.

Get the rest of the lesson AFTER THE JUMP…

The first effective skin-puncturing syringe needle was co-invented in 1853 by a French guy named Charles Pravaz and a Scottish guy named Alexander Wood. Previous results of French/Scottish team-ups include a cigarette holder that clips on to bagpipes, haggis crepes and a pill that makes having sex with goats pretentious. This particular international co-production proved invaluable to modern medicine, but tragic for Wood, whose wife became the world’s first intravenous morphine addict and, ultimately, died from an overdose. A way to make this funny is to picture it as a Daffy Duck cartoon. Almost 100 years later, the British Chance brothers created an all-glass syringe with interchangeable parts. Now people could sterilize syringes en masse without having to match specific components to individual units. The best I can do with this one is tell you to imagine the brothers as animated snowmen trying to roast marshmallows but their hands keep melting. The first disposable plastic syringe was invented in 1956 by New Zealand pharmacist Colin Murdoch, who also invented the tranquilizer gun.

DID YOU KNOW that tranquilizer darts are simply ballistic syringes propelled by compressed air and steadied in flight using a fibrous tailpiece? DO YOU KNOW WHERE I could get some? AND, ALSO, A gun for them? ARE YOU GOOD at making groups of high school girls scatter and kind of run off in all directions? DO YOU HAVE an inconspicuous van?

WANNA HELP ME with something?

Probably, when you think of syringes, you think about how they use them to refill printer ink cartridges, and to insert all the nummy oo-gooey fruitiness into Gushers. You probably think about veterinarians using milk-filled syringes to suckle tiny, adorable baby animals, and about my made up Nirvana song, and that one sorta happy part of “Requiem for a Dream.” But what about HIV and hepatitis, both of which can be acquired from dirty syringes? What about heroin addicts and that part in Trainspotting where the baby dies? Or the rest of “Requiem for a Dream”? What about your diabetic aunt who your parents said died from a lack of insulin shots, but who actually died when a CIA operative mistook her for Illuminati and injected her with a syringe full of Ricin? Why didn’t you think about any of that stuff? Christ, you didn’t even think about snus!

DID YOU KNOW that snus is a Scandinavian tobacco product that, like dipping tobacco, is meant to be packed under the upper lip, but which, unlike dipping tobacco, doesn’t require the user to spit? DID YOU KNOW THAT some snus aficionados use wide-orifice syringes to “inject” quantities of tightly packed snus into the space between their gum line and lip? WHAT WOULD YOU SAY if I told you that these snus depositing devices were called “Snussies”? WHAT IF I TOLD YOU they were called “Packajams”? WHAT WOULD YOU DO if you found out they’re actually called “Portioners”? YEAh. I PUNCHED a wall, too.

Thank you, Jason, for helping us learn through murder.

Join me again soon for another thrilling installment of Jason Vorhees’ Arsenal!

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