There are 11,000 neurologists in the U.S.

And a few weekends ago, due to a computer glitch, every one of them had an inbox that looked like this:

Voicemail theater

Message left at  6:55 a.m.

"Hi, thith ith Mike Thmith. I haf to canthel my appointment wif Dr. Grumpy for thith morning. I wath in a barfight lath night and loth thome teeth and have an emergenthy dental appointment. Thorry."

Message left at 7:00 a.m.

"Good morning, this is Dr. Perry O'Dontis. I'm sorry, but I'm going to have to cancel and reschedule my appointment with Dr. Grumpy for this morning. My partner is out of town, and one of his patients got into a barfight last night and had his teeth knocked out, so I need to work him in this morning."

Weekend on call

I've been called down to ER to see a fellow who suffered a stroke while at the local casino. His wife has just arrived.

Dr. Grumpy: "I'm glad you're here... his face is kind of drooping on this side. Is that normal for him?"

Mrs. Alteplase: "Let me see... He always has that."

Dr. Grumpy: "Okay. Do you know what medications he's on?"

Mrs. Alteplase: "No, but check his wallet. He always has that."

Dr. Grumpy: "Okay" (I start searching through the guy's pockets). "You know where he keeps it?"

Mrs. Alteplase: "No, but he always has that."

As I find and pull out the wallet a handgun - with the safety off - falls out of another pocket and lands on the floor with a loud THUNK. Me and 2 nurses freeze for a second, afraid it might go off.

Mrs. Alteplase: "He always has that."

Bathroom humor

A reader sent in this picture, where apparently an "out of order" sign just wasn't enough:

 

Of course, art imitates life, and vice versa:

Review of Systems

Dr. Grumpy: "Do you have any other health issues?"

Mr. Toss: "On January 14, 1999, I threw up in a Taco Bell bathroom, but other than that I've been fine."

Accuracy

Dr. Grumpy: "Have you had any surgeries, sir?"

Mr. Plumbum: "Yeah, I got shot, and they had to take out the bullet."

Dr. Grumpy: "Where did you got shot?"

Mr. Plumbum: "Korea."

Breaking the fourth wall

Actual CT scan report:

Thank you, M!

Abracadabra

Dr. Grumpy: "Have a seat, what can I do for you?"

Mrs. Anatidae: "My homeopath says his exam showed I have taurine in my brain, and referred me to you to take it out."

 

Pause

  

Dr. Grumpy: "Ma'am, everyone has taurine in their brain. It's critical for nerve function. It's in most organ systems."

 

Pause

 

Mrs. Anatidae: "So... you're telling me there isn't a surgery or something to take it out? He said there was."

Dr. Grumpy: "No. It's normal to have taurine in your brain. You need it to stay alive."

 

Pause

 

Mrs. Anatidae: "I'm sick of all the lies you regular doctors tell people like me to keep us sick so you can make money off our suffering!!!"

 

She stormed out and slammed the door.

 

Change

Since the twins are both at the same university, we bought them a car to share a few months back.

Yesterday we received a letter from the dealer's accounting department, saying they overcharged us in error, along with a check for the amount.

 

I am not making this up.

Write your own caption

This picture, I swear, is taken from the Disney website, showing a family enjoying the all-new MCU Avengers Campus at Disneyland.

If they're having fun, I can't imagine what the families who aren't enjoying it look like.

 

Meanwhile, up front

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

Ms. Young: "Hi, I was referred by Dr. Neverheardofhim, and he says you need to work me in RIGHT AWAY. Like, today. Now."

Mary: "We have nothing open today... I can do next Wednesday, at 2:30, or..."

Ms. Young: "I looked it up! On the internet it says you are legally obligated to get me in, since my doctor referred me urgently!"

Mary: "Uh, no. If you have an emergency you'll need to go to ER. We don't have any kind of relationship with Dr. Neverheardofhim. The soonest I get you in is Wednesday, though I can put you on a waiting list for..."

Ms. Young: "This is terrible that you're breaking the law like this! I'm going to call my cousin, who's a lawyer!"

She hung up

2 hours later

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

Ms. Young: "Hi, um, I was referred by Dr. Neverheardofhim, I called earlier, and I decided I'll take the Wednesday appointment."

Mary: "I'm sorry, but it's no longer available. We can see you Friday morning, at 8:00, or..."

Ms. Young: "You gave away my appointment? You can't do that!"

Mary: "You never made an appointment."

Ms. Young: "You offered it to me! That's the same thing! I looked it up! On the internet it says you are legally obligated to hold it for me."

Mary: "I'm not going to argue with you. Would you like the Friday morning slot?"

Ms. Young: "This is terrible that you're breaking the law like this! I'm going to call my cousin, who's a lawyer!"

She hung up 

 

1 hour later. 

 

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

Ms. Young: "Hi, um, I called earlier, I was referred by Dr. Neverheardofhim, can I take the Friday morning appointment? Is it still available?"

Mary: "It is, that's Friday morning at 8:00. Okay, what insurance do you have?"

Ms. Young: "Federal United Healthcare."

Mary: "Oh... I'm sorry, Dr. Grumpy isn't contracted with F-U Healthcare."

Ms. Young: "Dr. Neverheardofhim referred me! So you have to take it! I looked it up on the internet!"

Mary: "We don't take that plan, so you'll have to try their website to find a neurologist who does."

Ms. Young: "No, that's YOUR job! You need to find someone who takes my insurance, and have them work me in! It's the law! I looked it up on the internet! I'm going to call my cousin, who's a lawyer!"

Mary hung up

Deep thoughts

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."

Supermarket report

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.

Vacation memories

Recently my wife and I were going through photos from cruises we've taken, and I thought I'd share a few:

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!