A case of swollen whimsey

   Today I was reading Lewis Carroll's Silvie and Bruno when someone near me used the phrase "hurt his pride." My nonsense-fueled thoughts came up with this, which would fit quite well into anything Carroll's written:

  You’ve heard people say “The only thing I hurt was my pride.” They don’t mean their pride was physically hurt, of course. But where I come from, that’s possible. We hurt our pride, our egos, our tempers. Why, just last week, a friend of mine fell off his bike and landed right on his temper. He hasn’t been able to get mad for days, and as a result, quite a few people have been borrowing money from him or breaking bad news. I haven’t, though. Stubbed my sense of opportunism the other day, and it still hasn’t quite recovered.
  In addition to physicals, we get ‘immaterials’.  The local hospital has an entire department for this sort thing. Operating on aspects of personality is tougher than brain surgery, and so I’m not quite clear of the specifics. Often there’s a waitlist, which you can be moved up if you provide a need. Say a man has severed his competitive spirit, but has a marathon approaching within the next few days. He would of course be rushed though. These reasons are vigorously inspected for authenticity, particularly those regarding such issues as fractured honesty.
  The black market can be a problem... It’s not uncommon for those who wander into the bad side of town to wake up in a tub of ice sans a sense of humor. They don’t take it well. Undergraduate students, too, surrender personality traits willingly, starting with those that won’t be needed by their occupation. Many a well-loved Mr. Rodgers-esque TV show host owes his amiability to a half-dozen equally successful lawyers.