Like a pair of rusty pliers ripping open the fragile, reluctant petals of a nascent rosebud; like an untwisted wire coat hanger dangling beneath a car window cracked slightly ajar; like a greasy butter knife tapping insistently upon the sides of a Duke's mayonnaise jar lid that just won't open - not even after running it under a hot water tap for, like, you know, at least three minutes. Or perhaps like a dense, fallow writer conjuring up yet another inappropriate simile to begin a sorry-assed story, researchers at L'Institute Sacre Bleu (ISB) are slowly uncovering the age-old secrets that lie behind so many of the Mysteries of Human Existence.

While biomedical researchers at many of the world's famous universities and health-care research institutes steer their efforts toward searching for innovative new ways to comfort the afflicted, our scientists at ISB work around the clock to cure the afflictions of the comfortable. One day we hope to eliminate completely the chronic, crippling maladies of the bourgeoisie.

Already, our efforts are yielding some promising results:

IWWICH enzyme

Why does your partner seem to be interested in sex only at times when you aren't - and vice versa? Why does the job you don't have always look so much better than the job you have? Why does the lunch that the person sitting across from you ordered look so much more appetizing than the uninspired fare heaped, with such sad and pointless poignancy, upon your slightly smaller plate?

The I-Want-What-I-Can't-Have (IWWICH) enzyme may be responsible for a variety of these social and emotional maladaptations, our scientists are fast discovering. Although its exact mechanisms are still unclear, the activity of the IWWICH enzyme appears to stimulate a complex series of switches within our ever-adaptive neuroendocrine system, modulating the metabolism of key steroidogenic pathways that influence circulating levels of leptin (the "hunger" hormone), testosterone (the "horny" hormone), and DHEA (the "huzzah-huzzah, whoop-dee-doo" hormone).

The Mom Nerve

ISB researchers have identified a tiny, specialized nerve in the body that responds only to sounds issued from a mother's voice box. This nerve, dubbed the "nervus maternalis," extends from deep inside the little toe, wraps itself in a complex series of figure eights all about the myocardium, and attaches itself at the base of the cerebral cortex. Stimulation of the nervus maternalis may simultaneously trigger a shower of synaptic sparks, sudden angina, and chronic toe spasms, particularly in response to comments such as "When you're so busy with work, it must be hard to find time to clean the house" or "That's interesting. Where did you learn to fold socks like that?" or "I heard your old friend Susan makes a six-figure salary now."

The Jeans Gene

Let's face it, some people look fantastic in a pair of jeans. But others do not fare so well shrink-wrapped in denim. Jeans may make us look as if we've spent the entire day shoplifting kumquats. Or, if we are on the lanky side, like a postoperative farmer-in-the-dell after a complete buttectomy.

For decades, people who don't look good in jeans have engaged in torturous self-recrimination and guilt, yet mounting clinical research shows it's really not their fault. An increasingly persuasive body of epidemiological evidence suggests that people who don't look good in jeans often have a family history of not-looking-good-in-jeans. Working on the cutting seams of science, ISB scientists, in collaboration with researchers at Levi-Strauss Laboratories, are selflessly laboring to identify mutations in the jeans gene, which may one day help treat the millions of people currently forced to wear Haggar slacks every day of their lives.

Neuronal Non Poco Accelerando

Can't get that tune out of your head? Wake up in the middle of the night in the throes of a relentless cerebral rendition of Beethoven's Fifth or the theme song from Mannix (which you haven't heard in 30 years)? Formerly, distinguished (now extinguished) scientists used to believe that there were teensy-weensy tape recorders hidden inside our brains that occasionally got stuck, playing the same song over and over again ad nauseam. But that was back in the days when science was mostly done using 8-track tapes, rubber bands, Slinkys, and Ouija boards. With the advent of revolutionary, cutting-edge advances in modern technology involving computer microchips, lasers, genomics, magnetic resonance imaging, and nonskid paper clips, scientists now know that brain neurons have mouths and voices and they are singing torch songs back at us, especially late at night (when most neuronal nightclubs open).

If you are interested in doing your part to help cure, once and for all, hangnails, ice-cream headaches, and athlete's foot relapse, please send your federal tax cut to L'Institute Sacre Bleu.