Mrs. Seegarp: "My headaches have been terrible the last few months, and I don't know why."
Dr. Grumpy: "Have you had more stress? Or does it seem the Perflukin has stopped working?"
Mrs. Seegarp: "I stopped Perflukin 3 months ago when the copay coupon expired."
Hi, this is Frank.
I'm still working part-time at Local Grocery, carrying groceries out and pushing empty carts in.
At Local Grocery, and at pretty much all the other stores and malls around town, asshats of both sides STILL feel the need to cover someone else's property with stickers that say "Let's go, Brandon!" or "Dump Trump" or whatever. Usually they show up at night, and sometimes there's more than one layer where they try to cover the other side's stickers.
Can you people please stop this? This bullshit is only hurting me and my co-workers.
Because after you leave, thinking how clever you are for sticking the damn things all over cart corrals, lamp posts, "handicapped parking" signs, and even shopping carts that got missed at the closing sweep, we're the ones who have to scrape them off. So each day the morning shift has to send people out with chemicals and scrapers to deal with it, only to have some bozo put them back up the next night.
You think we like doing this at 6:00 a.m. in the Midwestern winter?
You're welcome to your opinion and your stickers. Cover your car, or your house, or your body with them. I don't care.
But all you're doing here is making more work for me, and a lot of other retail store drudges, from sea to shining sea.
The situation has gotten bad enough that now Local Grocery has hired a guy just to come in a few days a week and scrape them off the property, in addition to the extra cameras they've had to put up in the parking lot.
Those cameras aren't cheap. The guys who have to scrape off the stickers aren't volunteers. This stuff increases the store's overhead, and the same for stores, gas stations... wherever else you do this crap.
Which means that your prices are only going to go up. Certainly, this isn't a big driver of inflation in our world gone mad, but it contributes. And everyone has to pay for the asinine behavior of a few.
So grow up. Put them all over your house, car, and face if you want, but leave other people's property out if it.
Thank you.
These buffet signs from the "Department of Obvious."
Perhaps a tad scarier was this item, which falls under "what do we do with all these leftover hot dogs?"
I went down to trivia, and realized I had no chance of winning a key chain:
For those unfamiliar with cruise ship trivia, the game is for bragging rights only. The prizes are generally cheap gift shop crap, like cruise-line themed key chains, beer koozies, golf tees, coasters, and pessaries. Except on Carnival, where it's a plastic trophy shaped like a ship.
One ship we were on had this large artwork in a staircase that, to me, looked like a dead body wrapped in a sheet:
Kind of like Kim Basinger being carried out toward the end of "Last Dance with Mary Jane":
One day the ship's activity guide listed an LGBTQ "delicious lunch feast" with camaraderie. Apparently, however, neither the feast nor camaraderie were to exceed 15 minutes:
This fire hazard is, admittedly, my own invention. It was an improvised set-up to keep my MacBook plugged into the only outlet I could find on the sun deck, using a power convertor and some empty cups to keep the whole thing from falling out.
Lastly, one night we were out strolling on deck, where the pool stand routinely had a cute towel animal on display. That evening we were kind of stunned to see it was, uh, something different.
 |
| "I dunno. Maybe they put Viagra in the laundry detergent?" |
We were somewhat taken aback that the towel booth had taken an R-rated turn, until we continued walking and saw it from another angle:
That's all, folks!
Annie: "Dr. Grumpy's office, this is Annie."
Mr. Clueless: "Hi, Dr. Grumpy has my wife on Fukitol, and it's either not helping, or it's making her sick. I'm not sure which."
Annie: "Okay, there's a big difference between those two things. Can you check with her, or just put her on the phone?"
Mr. Clueless: "She's at the casino with some friends, I can have her call you later?"
Annie: "Yeah, please have her..."
Mr. Clueless: "She's taking 2 and 1/2 pills twice each day."
Annie: "All right, it looks like she has both the 50mg and 200mg pill sizes from past scripts. Which size is she taking 2 and 1/2 of?"
Mr. Clueless: "I don't know. What difference does that make?"
Annie: "A lot. Just have her call me."
Mr. Clueless. "I will. Actually, maybe it's the Tidepod he has her on that's doing it."
Annie: "Dr. Grumpy doesn't have her on Tidepod. It's not in his field. Maybe one of her other doctors?"
Mr. Clueless: "Well, it's either Fukitol or Tidepod that she's taking, regardless of size, and it either isn't working or she needs a higher dose. Does that make sense... Actually, I'll just have her call you when she gets back, it will be in about an hour."
Annie: "That's probably for the best."
Dr. Grumpy: "This is Dr. Grumpy, returning a call."
Mr. Scan: "Hi, doc, I need to talk to Annie, or whoever schedules tests for your practice."
Dr. Grumpy: "She's off this week, sir. My office message says we're closed until after New Years."
Mr. Scan: "Yeah, I heard that. Um, okay, maybe you can help me... Back in, uh, July, you sent me an order for an MRI. I have to get one every few years to follow up on my meningothingioma whatever, to make sure it isn't growing?"
Dr. Grumpy: "Yes."
Mr. Scan: "Anyway, I've been busy, and I need to get the scan done today, otherwise my deductible starts over tomorrow. So I've been calling MRI places, and none of them can get me in today, and I guess I need an insurance authorization for it, too, so I need you or Annie to get an authorization ASAP, and call one of these places and tell them I'm in a life threatening situation or something to get it done. Let me give you the numbers of the places I've called..."
Dr. Grumpy: "No, sir. Look, this isn't going to happen. Your MRI is not medically urgent, for one thing, and..."
Mr. Scan: "You don't know that! If the tumor is growing I could die from it tonight!!!"
Dr. Grumpy: "Well, it was ordered back in July, as you pointed out. You're the one who didn't call to set it up until the last day of the year. My staff is on vacation now."
Mr. Scan: "It's not like your note said 'please call before Christmas or we'll be closed,' did it?"
Dr. Grumpy: "I'm not going to argue with you sir. The bottom line is that the last day of the year is not the time to call to get a test done that you should have had 5 months ago. Just because you didn't think about this until today doesn't make it an emergency. Call back next week and we'll get it set up for you."
Mr. Scan: "You medical people are all such inconsiderate assholes."
Click
Dr. Grumpy: "How's your floral business doing?"
Mrs. Dixon: "I had to close down... The pandemic just wiped it out."
Dr. Grumpy: "I'm so sorry."
Mrs. Dixon: "Yeah, I mean, nobody saw that coming, but still... Anyway, in some ways it's been a blessing because it let me open a business that's closer to what I really wanted."
Dr. Grumpy: "What are you doing now?"
Mrs. Dixon: "I'm a psychic."
Mr. Fatherly: "It was really stressful 3 months ago, because my son and his fiancée moved in with me."
Dr. Grumpy: "How are things now?"
Mr. Fatherly: "Better, my son finally moved out last week."
Dr. Grumpy: "What about his fiancée?"
Mr. Fatherly: "I married her. That's why he moved out."
Dr. Grumpy: "Has the medication helped?"
Mr. Son: "I think mom is doing okay with it, and the staff at the Alzheimer's home tell me..."
Mrs. Mother: "Wait... the place I'm living at is for Alzheimer's disease?"
Mr. Son: "Yes, mom."
Mrs. Mother: "Why do I live there, anyway?"
Guy comes into office, Mary slides open her window.
Mary: "Hi, you have a 1:00 appointment? Okay. Can I make a copy of your insurance card? Thank you... Do you have a mask?"
Mr. Beijerinck: "No. I don't need one."
Mary: "Dr. Grumpy asks that all patients wear them. Let me give you one."
Mr. Beijerinck: "Little lady, the pandemic is over, if there ever was one. I ain't wearing a mask."
Mary: "Sir, because of the nature of his field, Dr. Grumpy sees a lot of patients on medications that suppress their immune systems, so for their protection we ask that everyone wear a mask when they go back to see him. Here's one you can wear during your visit."
Mr Beijerinck: "You want me to wear this?"
Mary: "Yes, just while you're here, please."
Mr. Beijerinck: "Okay, here."
He tears the mask into little pieces, tosses them through the window onto Mary's desk.
Mr. Beijerinck: "That's what I think of your bullshit rules. Now, honey, just go tell the doctor that I'm here for my appointment."
Mary: "Thank you for letting me know. Here's your insurance card back, I haven't copied it. I'll let the doctor know that I cancelled your appointment. Have a nice day."
Mary closes her window, pretends to answer her phone, and ignores him until he leaves.
Dr. Grumpy: "This is Dr. Grumpy, returning a page."
Mr. Lacune: "Hi, thish ish Dave Lacune, you shaw me at the hoshpital a few days ago, when I had a shtroke."
Dr. Grumpy: "Yes sir, are you okay? Your speech is pretty slurred, and I don't remember it having been affected by the stroke."
Mr. Lacune: "I'm fine. Look, you preshcribed Nomocva to me, to keep me from having another a shtroke, but I read about all itsh shide effectsh, and sho now I shtopped it and I'm afraid to take it."
Dr. Grumpy: "I'm kind of concerned you've had another stroke, sir. Your speech is pretty slurred."
Mr. Lacune: "Nah, my shpeech ish like thish because I've been doing tequila shotsh and shmoking weed all night because I'm anxioush."
Pause
Dr. Grumpy: "What are you so anxious about?"
Mr. Lacune: "Becaushe I shtopped Nomocva, sho now I'm worried I might have another shtroke."
