Annie's desk

Annie: "Dr. Grumpy's office, this is Annie."

Lisa: "Hi, this, is Lisa, referral person for Deathtrap HMO."

Annie: "Hello."

Lisa: "Dr. Grumpy referred Mr. Axon to Dr. Needlemeister for an EMG? I thought Dr. Grumpy does these himself."

Annie: "He does, but Mr. Axon has a number of issues that make the test more complicated. So Dr. Grumpy prefers that an EMG specialist do it in this case."

Lisa: "Okay, but if Dr. Grumpy has another doctor do it, I want to make it clear that we will not pay Dr. Grumpy for the test. We'll pay that doctor instead."

Annie: "Of course. We wouldn't expect you to pay us for it."

Lisa: "You people are so weird."

Covering all the bases

Seen in a chart:

Thank you, C!

Summertime

It's Saturday afternoon. As I'm heading home from the hospital, Mrs. Grumpy texts me to get some tomatoes at the grocers and to pick up my Sarcasma at the pharmacy before she has to kill me.

I'd been at Marie's basketball game when the hospital called, and so was wearing an old Motörhead T-shirt. While waiting in line at the grocery store some guy came over.

Some Guy: "Hey, I like that T-shirt."

Dr. Grumpy: "Uh, thank you."

I'm generally not one for small talk, so stared at my iPhone and began checking email. Unfortunately, this didn't stop him.

Some Guy: "I'm a big Motörhead fan. I saw them in person back in the day."

Dr. Grumpy: "Cool."

Some Guy: "I love their stuff. I was busted up when Lemmy died. You know, I don't think I've ever seen that particular T-shirt. Where'd you get it?"

Dr. Grumpy: "Uh, don't remember." (Actually, I'm pretty sure I got it at the charity thrift store for $1)

(I texted Mary asking her to call me so I can answer my phone)

Some Guy: "How much do you want for it?"

(He didn't really say that, did he? I'll just keep staring at my phone.)

Some Guy: "I like it. How much do you want for it?"

(For a fleeting second I think about it. I paid $1 for it... Ask him for $40 and see what he says.)

Dr. Grumpy: "No, thank you. Then I'd have nothing to wear home, and I still have errands to run."

Some Guy: "That's easy. I'll give you mine."

I look at him. He's wearing a white wife-beater undershirt with food stains and probably more antibiotic-resistant organisms than an uncleaned colonoscopy tube.

Dr. Grumpy: "Uh, no thanks."

(Mary texts me back, asking how much a call is worth to me)

Some Guy: "Your loss, dude."

He walks off. I got the tomatoes and headed over to the pharmacy. While in line there...

Some Guy: "Hey! It's you again. Did you change your mind? I came by to get some condoms. I'm still willing to switch shirts."

Dr. Grumpy: "No, thank you. I'll keep this one."

(The other people in line are looking at both of us like we're street performers)

Some Guy: "I've got a sort-of cleaner T-shirt in my car, I'll throw that one in, too."

Pharmacist: "Next in line, please."

It's my turn. Thank heavens.

Back next week!

We're still dragging kids around (and vice versa).

Off, again

Heading out for our big trip of the summer.

3 kids, lots of relatives, and our credit cards.

See you in a few weeks!

Memories...

Back in residency, I occasionally had to round with Dr. Levodopa on weekends.

Dr. Levodopa, in a field of pathological personalities, had more odd mannerisms than I could count. But his strangest was that he carried a cup of black coffee... in his white coat pocket.

Not a travel mug, or even a generic cup with a plastic lid on it. But an open styrofoam cup. He'd fill it about 3/4 to the top at the nurses station, take a few sips, shove it in one of the coat's lower pockets, and start rounds.

So he had a large collection of white coats, all with dark coffee stains running from the right front pocket to the hem. As he'd walk, or move, or cough, coffee would slosh out, running down his white coat, pant leg, and to the floor. He never seemed to notice.

He was, though,  clearly aware of it, because he'd change into a clean coat as soon as he got to his clinic.

Like in "The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy," the resident on rounds with him would carry around a large towel (we kept several old ones in the call room for this purpose) to keep the floor from being slippery and wet as Dr. Levodopa wandered to and fro. He was, as best we could tell, completely oblivious to our efforts. Or, more likely, just didn't care.

25 years later... and I still don't understand why he did this.

Not particularly helpful

Seen in a chart. Apparently, death is a diagnosis, and it has a 100% chance of running in families.

Breaking news

Dr. Grumpy's crack team of reporters, bringing you the stories that shape your world.



Dateline: Shanghai, China. A flight from Shanghai to Guangzhou was delayed for 5 hours when an 80 year-old woman threw a handful of coins into one of the plane's engines. She apparently did this to ensure good luck on the flight.

A team of airplane mechanics had to disassemble and inspect the Airbus's engine to make sure none of the turbines were damaged and to remove all coins.

The total value of the coins involved was roughly 20 U.S. pennies.




Dateline: Tulsa, Oklahoma. A dead body was found inside a Walmart bathroom. It had apparently been there for 3 days.

A security camera recorded the 29-year-old woman entering the bathroom on Friday. At some point over the weekend an employee couldn't get the bathroom door open, and hung up an "Out of Order" sign. A repair crew found the body on Monday.

Police captain Todd Enzbrenner commented "It’s not every day you find this sort of thing in a business."




Dateline: Allyn, Washington. A man found a dead roadkill raccoon on the road, and decided to use it as bait to catch crabs. Like most dead things, it smelled awful, so he tied a rope to it to drag it about 15 feet behind him as he walked home.

Two drivers pulled over and confronted him, believing he was dragging a dead dog down the street. One of them shot the raccoon-dragging guy in the leg and drove away. He is expected to recover (the guy, not the raccoon). Police are searching for suspects.

Sheriff's department Lt. Travis Adams told reporters "I've been doing this for 21-plus years, and I've never quite heard the 'raccoon being dragged down the road' story before, so it's a new one for all of us."




Dateline: Modesto, California. A 45 year man was arrested for starting a fire in a Walgreen's bathroom.

The man told police that he'd had "an accident," and soiled his underwear. He went into the bathroom to take them off and, for unclear reasons, felt the best way to do so was to light them on fire - while still in them.

This got the underwear off, and the man tossed them in the toilet to extinguish the blaze. While no damage was done to the store (or, amazingly, him), this set off the fire alarm and they had to evacuate the building.

Bow wow wow yippie yo yippie yay

Mary: "Dr. Grumpy's office, this is Mary."

Mrs. Woof: "I need to get into Dr. Grumpy right away! I was bitten by a dog, and may have suffered nerve damage!"

Mary: "Okay, we don't have anything until next week, are..."

Mrs. Woof: "But this needs to be done urgently. I think I need stitches!"

Mary: "Um, when did this occur?'

Mrs. Woof: "Five, maybe ten minutes ago. It's bleeding all over the place!"

Mary: "You need to go to ER. Dr. Grumpy doesn't handle injuries like this."

Mrs. Woof: "But there might be nerve damage! He's a nerve doctor!"

Mary: "Yes, but he's not going to put stitches in it, or know what else to do. You need to go to ER, and let them see what's going on."

Mrs. Woof: "You people are a waste of time!"

(click)

Don't piss him off

Seen in a chart:

"Well, that's not so big, works out to only 563 meters."

Projection

Mrs. Pesce: "That's not the same fish you had at my last visit, is it? I thought it was a different color."

Dr. Grumpy: "Yeah. It's a new fish. Ed, uh, retired.”

Mrs. Pesce : "So what's this one's name?"

Dr. Grumpy: "Ed. I name them all Ed. Makes life easier."

Mrs. Pesce: "You know, I didn't like the last fish. Every time I came in he looked at me, really angry. Like he thought I was faking everything. I hate to say it, but I'm glad he's dead, because I'd been thinking about changing neurologists because of him and his attitude."

No shit, Sherlock

These are the kinds of warnings that modern, technologically advanced, highly sophisticated computer prescribing systems give us dumb ol' doctors when we're trying to refill your medication. Because even if we're just refilling it, the computer wants us to know that IT'S DANGEROUS TO DO SO because apparently you're already on it (which is the whole point of a refill, isn't it?).

And what's with the weird capital / lower case scheme on some of these?

Breaking news

Dr. Grumpy's crack team of reporters continue to bring you the stories that shape your world.

The summer amusement park season is upon us, and unfortunately tragedy has already struck at America's most legendary one.

This past Friday night 17 people, including 6 innocent children, were enjoying an up-till-then fun day at Disneyland. They were standing near Sleeping Beauty's castle when they were horrifically splattered with a large volume of bird poop from a passing flock of geese.

An unidentified bystander, who apparently doesn't know shit, called 911 to report that someone was throwing human turds at people.

This resulted in a city HazMat team being dispatched to the scene, hopefully in those bright yellow suits so people would think they were re-enacting a child alert from Monsters, Inc.

The crappy situation was resolved by taking the victims to a "private restroom" (what does that mean, anyway? No one has used it since Walt died, like the room over the fire station?). There they were provided with clean clothes ("Birds shit on me at Disneyland and all I got was this crappy T-shirt").

At press time the geese were unavailable for comment.

Research

Dr. Grumpy is no stranger to not-particularly-worthwhile research, having published some myself.

I get it. You didn't want to do it, but you're in training, and your chairman made you write up something embarrassingly bad in order to graduate. BTDT.

Last week, some of the biggest names in Parkinson's disease (besides James Parkinson) gathered in Vancouver, BC, for a conference.

One of my colleagues there noticed this poster hanging in the meeting's research hall:

To summarize:

Earthquakes are bad. Having Parkinson's disease, AND being in an earthquake, is worse.

The bigger the earthquake, the greater the effect will be on a Parkinson's patient.

Their symptoms will get worse in the immediate aftermath of the quake, but gradually return to baseline as things settle down.

Thank you, SMOD!