xmee / Shutterstock An appendectomy is the white bread of surgeries. It’s common, it’s low-risk, and it only takes an hour or two to perform. Even the children’s-book character Madeline had her appendix out, and it was so not a big deal that at the end of the book, the other girls who lived in the “old house in Paris that was covered with vines” complained that they wanted to get their appendixes out too, so they could get presents and have a cool scar.