Wednesday, June 15, 2011

Public Service Announcement

Attention patients:

There are reasons the hospital asks you to put your cell phone on quiet mode when visiting patients.

For example, it is disruptive to a somber family meeting on withdrawing grandma from life support when your phone rings loudly.

Especially when your ring tone is a female voice screaming "Fuck me! Fuck me harder!".

Thank you.

27 comments:

  1. Classy!

    But at the same time, it's nice and somewhat useful to let someone break the somber mood with something absurd and unexpected during those family meetings.

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  2. Awesome! I am inclined to agree with anonymous. As long as granny is not actually in the room.

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  3. You have GOT to be kidding me!!!

    wanders off...
    shaking head in wonder...

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  4. interesting. Most of the hospitals in my area still try to insist that cell phones should be OFF, not silent in the hospital.

    But since their staff feels free to ignore the signs, the patients and their families do too.

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  5. Who on earth thinks that's an appropriate ringtone?

    Mine is "Ave Maria." Sheesh. (Regardless, I put it on vibrate if I visit friends/family in the hospital...)

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  6. Whoa, seriously? Who does that? People are rude.

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  7. Mine just rings. I know, boring. But one of our *salespeople* has a woman going , "yes, yes, yes," (Yes, THAT way) for a ringtone.

    I wonder how he deals with that on a client call. Or perhaps I don't.

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  8. When I call my husband, I've programmed it to ring the Nutcracker Suite. When my mother calls me, I've programmed the Darth Vader theme.

    I guess I didn't know "FUCK ME" was an option.

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  9. Oh.My.God.

    I take Anonymous's point, but sadly I have found that the mere existence of family meetings produces more than enough of the absurd and unexpected.

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  10. I can't think of too many places where that ring tone wouldn't be inappropriate.

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  11. A while back I translated a questionnaire being used to find out usage habits of cell phones. One of the questions asked about what you did in certain circumstances (switch it off, silent, leave it at home). One place was "At a funeral". WHO would leave their phone on during a funeral??????????? Except maybe the funeral director I guess.

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  12. TY!!! I always know when I'm reading or writing something more somber, I can come here and get a deep belly laugh out of your posts.

    This one is classic!!

    TY! :)

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  13. Same reason why they ask us to silence our cell phones in church.

    So damn funny, I had to cut and paste and send it to friends. Thanks for the best laugh of the week.

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  14. My ringtone for when work or my boss's cellphone calls is Captain Kirk going "KHAAAAAN!"

    Because of this, I make sure to turn the ringer off when it's not appropriate. Though I have gotten a lot of strange looks for it.

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  15. while waiting in the ER I once got to listen to a woman choosing her ring tone. She chose something that shouted BITCH at her. I figured she must be a masochist.

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  16. Granma couldn't get fucked much harder than having the plug pulled!

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  17. I was in a similar delicate situation with a family once and someone outside the curtain had their phone go off......."Another One Bites the Dust". AWKWARD.

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  18. ...not sure if I should laugh until I cry or cry until I laugh.

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  19. It probably should be attention visitors, since I dunno how many patients visit patients. ;)

    Otherwise...wow. What people use as their ringtone never fails to entertain me, I guess? Mine is almost always on vibrate, unless it rings, and then well...it rings. How original, I know.

    Wv: testicri - what the man is doing, I guess...weird word.

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  20. my "normal" ringtone is intrumental from "witchy woman". hubby's tone on my phone is "who's your daddy", my son is the harry potter theme, daughter's is the chorus from "gunpowder and lead", ex-hubby's is wagner's "ride of the valkyries".

    i spent some time thinking about it, other people are going to have to hear my phone going off, too. good grief.

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  21. what a cracker! At least you could laugh about it later, and i bet he got a slamming after you left!

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  22. For HSA Student: I used to work for a man named Scott. One day feeling goofy, I answered my (work) phone, "Bridge! Kirk here!" To my horror on the other end my boss went, "Scotty here! The engines canna take anymore!"

    Ok, now it's funny. Then...

    Another tale: During one of my week-long hospital stays, for some reason, the only bed they had open when I was admitted was on the cardiac step-down unit. One morning I had to listen to somejerk fight with a doctor, insisting his mom had had a heart attack and/or stroke, refusing to believe that 90+ yr old people (especially ones on handfuls of pills) can simply sometimes get dizzy and fall down. Despite being bedridden I really wanted to get up and go punch the guy for standing there SCREAMING at the doctor, all in front of his poor tired mom.

    A couple hours later some friends came by to cheer me up. Despite jerkwad across the hall still ranting and raving at his poor mom about the "stupid doctor", they really got me laughing, and already too-long story shorter, I wound up saying fairly loudly, "Oh my god, I bought contraceptive cream on eBay from a lesbian!"

    From across the hall was a loud SLAM of a door.


    I love my friends.

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  23. This ring tone is really obscene and defeats even my powers of pretending not to be astonished.
    I am completely serious for once.
    How totally crass.

    WV: fulike

    Says it all, really, and then some.
    (Brits will understand best)

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  24. That's klassier than a a fat lady in a bikini at a NASCAR race.

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  25. Thank you Dr. Grumpy for your humorous stories. I was rounding on a critically ill patient in the ICU a few years ago. I was concerned that this patient was going to pass away in the next day or two and therefore my team was very serious as were rounding at her bedside. We were speaking very seriously with the patient's relative about the prognosis when the relative's cell phone began blaring, "Knock, knock, knocking on heaven's door." I managed to make it outside before I got completely tickled at the ringtone selection.

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So wadda you think?