Questionably effective hangover remedies

As a follow-up to yesterday's blog hailing the famous and the schnockered, we present our very favorite hangover cures that almost certainly don't work and you should by no means attempt. This one goes out to Saint Bibiana -- pictured at left -- Catholicism's patron saint of the hangover. Legend has it that after she was scourged to death by the Romans, headache-curing herbs grew in a garden near her grave. (Tomorrow, look for our top twenty favorite celebrities who met their end by being scourged to death. Yeesh!) In any case, if praying to patron saints ain't your thing, you might try:

"¢ eating fried canaries, as Bibiana's Roman scourgers did.
"¢ Sticking 13 pins in the cork of the bottle that did you in, as is custom in Haiti.
"¢ Slurping down a sheep's eye pickled in tomato juice, a cure which hails from Outer Mongolia.
"¢ Rubbing a lemon under your drinking arm, Puerto-Rican style.
"¢ Taking a horrible shower that oscillates between extremely hot and cold water, as seen in The Princess Bride.
"¢ Eating canned asparagus before going to bed, which only has two negative side affects: 1) it makes your pee smell funny, and 2) it acts as a diuretic, and thus exacerbates the dehydration that hangover sufferers experience.
"¢ Eating whole jalapenos, which if nothing else will distract you from the pain in your head while you concentrate on the pain in your mouth.
"¢ Having sex, which purportedly releases enough endorphins into the system to dull the effects of a painful hangover. (Also, sweating can help purge alcohol from your body.) Note: this remedy does not work pre-emptively.
"¢ Drinking what's known as a "prairie oyster": two raw eggs mixed with pepper, Tabasco sauce and gin.

If none of that works, there is one sure-fire cure: not drinking.