I have been experiencing the weirdest sensation, something like, I don’t know, a taste hallucination. I keep imagining that I am tasting something distinctive, even though I’m not eating anything. Most of the time it has been this black truffle cheese, but a few times it was asparagus and once, oddly, a flavor of Baskin-Robbins ice cream (cherry cheesecake) that I used to favor when I was a kid, which I now (having “tasted” it as an adult) realize was disgusting.

Am I having some untoward neurological event? (Dr. Google says yes.) Does this sound like the run-up to a Very Special Episode of “House”? (Although if it were “House,” and I were complaining about strange symptoms, the person next to me would probably go into renal failure, and I’d never be heard from again.)

Speaking of “House”…nothing quite announces, “This show has jumped the shark” like a doctor show in which the regular doctors are suddenly the patients of the week. Same thing with a cop show where the cops are suspected of murder, a lawyer show where the lawyers start taking the stand, etc. TV writers, you were sitting around marinating in your creative juices for the whole writers’ strike, and this is the best you can do?