
CLEVELAND—Stressing that it never hurt to cover your bases, local surgeon Dr. Alicia Harkins reportedly completed the procedure for tying a patient’s fallopian tubes Monday by salting and cursing the woman’s uterus for good measure. “Hear me, oh spirits! Grant that this uterus become entirely fallow and forever inhospitable to the seed of man,” said Harkins, who spat in detestation upon the once fertile spot and spread salt across it in which she then traced a pentagram inscribed into a circle, thus rendering the womb barren for eons hence. “No child shall grow from this blighted spot. Sperm will shrivel and blacken upon these accursed grounds. Humanum quis sustulit Verionis palliolum sive res illius, qui illius minus fecit, ut illius mentes, memorias deiectas sive mulierem sive eas, cuius Verionis res minus fecit, ut illius manus, caput, pedes vermes, cancer, vermitudo interet, membra medullas illius interet.” At press time, sources confirmed the physician had completed the baneful ritual by entering a hypnotic trance in which she told her patient to get plenty of rest and avoid strenuous exercise for the next few weeks.