Okay, time to hit the mailbag for stuff you guys have sent in.
First, from the Guardian Angle Department:
Next is this lodging establishment:
Here we have a recycling can, apparently for people with partial bisection injuries (I don't think Darth Maul counts as "partial").
One reader says she discovered this uplifting decor at her dentist's office:
And, lastly, nurse Jenn says this drawer is in the galley of the nurses station she works at:
This is the launching of the aircraft carrier HMS Queen Elizabeth, July, 2014.
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| Photo credit AP |
This is the launching of the battleship HMS Prince of Wales in May, 1939.
If you look carefully, the same lady is in both pictures:
Dr. Grumpy: "This is Dr. Grumpy, returning a call."
Debbie: "Hi, it's Debbie, Dr. Nerve's office manager. Are you going to be covering his new partner, Dr. Axon's, hospital patients this weekend?"
Dr. Grumpy: "Does he have any hospital patients?"
Debbie: "No. He doesn't even have hospital privileges yet, so he won't have any hospital patients."
Pause
Dr. Grumpy: "Then why are you asking?"
Debbie: "Because Dr. Nerve told me to."
Dr. Grumpy: "What can I do for you?"
Mr. Bedsheet: "My wife says I kick in my sleep."
Lady Bedsheet: "He does! About an hour after he dozes off his legs start thrashing around, and it keeps me up."
Dr. Grumpy: "Do they..."
Lady Bedsheet: "Actually, I took a video of him doing it last night. Would that help?"
Dr. Grumpy: "Sure, why don't you put it on and I'll have a look."
Lady Bedsheet: "Let me get my phone." (rummages in her purse)
Mr. Bedsheet: "Doc, do you mind if I come around to that side of your desk? I want to see what it looks like myself."
Dr. Grumpy: "That's fine, why don't you stand right there." (I took a swig of Diet Coke)
Lady Bedsheet: "Okay, this woke me up just after midnight last night, you can see them kicking here..."
(I suddenly tried desperately not to blow Diet Coke all over her phone)
Mr. Bedsheet: "WHAT THE FUCK, HARRIET? WHY IS THAT IN THERE?"
Lady Bedsheet: "What was I supposed to do? You always sleep in the buff."
(I managed - barely - to get the Diet Coke down)
Mr. Bedsheet: "YOU COULDN'T HAVE TAKEN IT FROM A DIFFERENT ANGLE?!!!"
Lady Bedsheet: "A different angle? Who am I, Spielberg?"
Mr. Bedsheet: "WHY DIDN'T YOU PUT A SHEET OVER MY CROTCH OR SOMETHING?"
Lady Bedsheet: "Look, Dr. Grumpy is a doctor. I'm sure he looks at schlongs all day in his job."
Mr. Bedsheet: "He's a brain doctor! They don't look at schlongs!"
Lady Bedsheet: "Dr. Grumpy, is this true? Do brain doctors look at schlongs at work or don't they?"
Dr. Grumpy: (desperately trying to regain control of the appointment) "Um, how many nights a week does this happen?"
Mr. Bedsheet: "What? That she films my schlong? Apparently at least once."
Lady Bedsheet: "Harold, can you stop saying 'schlong'? I'm sure the doctor would prefer a more medical term."
Mr. Bedsheet: "I think he'd prefer you go sit in the waiting room."
Lady Bedsheet: "Fine. Dr. Grumpy, did you see enough of the video to understand what's going on?"
Dr. Grumpy: "Most definitely."
Mary: "Dr. Grumpy's office, this is Mary"
Ms. Cricetinae: "Hi, um, can Dr. Grumpy work me up for fur, I mean hair, loss, and weight changes?"
Mary: "No, you'll need to call your family doctor for that."
Ms. Cricetinae: "Well they won't see me for it."
Mary: "Well, I don't know what to tell you there, but Dr. Grumpy doesn't..."
Ms. Cricetinae: "Okay, the truth is that it's my hamster, Tulip. He's been losing weight, and fur, and I think he needs his thyroid checked and other stuff, but I don't want to pay for a vet. Can't Dr. Grumpy just draw the labs and bill them under my name to my insurance and say they were for me?"
Mary: "No, we can't do that. It's fraud. And Dr. Grumpy doesn't see hamsters, or know much about them."
Ms. Cricetinae: "But what about Tulip?
Mary: "Take him to the vet."
Ms. Cricetinae: "Thanks for being totally useless."
Click
Dr. Grumpy: "This is Dr. Grumpy, returning a call."
Mrs. Cartography: "Hi, I'm sorry to bother you on a weekend, but I'm on vacation and I guess I forget to bring my Fukitol pills."
Dr. Grumpy: "Okay, do you have a pharmacy you want me to call it to? Where are you?"
Mrs. Cartography: "I'm in Hawaii, in... hang on. It says this is Lahaina. Do you know a pharmacy here?"
Dr. Grumpy: "No but let me..."
Mrs. Cartography: "My phone says there's a Dumpster Drug in Honolulu. Can you send it there?"
Dr. Grumpy: "Yes, are you going there soon?"
Mrs. Cartography: "It wasn't planned, but I can if I need to. We have a rental car."
Dr. Grumpy: "Honolulu is on another island. You're on Maui."
Mrs. Cartography: "I know Hawaii is an island. I'm not stupid."
Dr. Grumpy: "It's several islands, and Lahaina and Honolulu aren't on the same one. Let me look up a pharmacy in Lahaina for you, hang on..."
Mrs. Cartography: "Well, I'd rather go to Dumpster Drugs, because I use them back home. Why don't you just call it in and we'll drive there tomorrow?"
Dr. Grumpy: "You can't drive from Lahaina to Honolulu."
Mrs. Cartography: "I'm sure you can, there must be bridge or something. I mean, that's what I do when I'm going to Brooklyn."
Dr. Grumpy: "It's not quite the same. Let me..."
Mrs. Cartography: "Oh, never mind. My husband found the Fukitol bottle in my purse. Have a good weekend, doctor."
Going through some old emails over the weekend, I found this one to my office staff. I wrote it roughly 10 years ago, during a family trip to Disneyland.
While waiting to get in this morning we passed a lady yelling at a
park employee outside a ticket booth. She was quite upset
that the "special Disneyland admissions" she'd bought for a few $100 bills wasn't
going to get her into the park. Or anywhere.
Lady: "I demand you honor these tickets! They say they're official tickets, and I paid good money for them."
Employee: "Ma'am, I'm sorry, but these aren't tickets. Did you get them at your hotel desk?"
Lady: "NO! The desk was ridiculously expensive. These were much cheaper.
I got them from a man selling them at the bus stop in front of my
hotel."
Employee: "I think you've been scammed. I can call the police if you
wish. He wasn't a Disney employee, and these aren't real tickets."
Lady: "Of course they're real! They have a picture of Mickey Mouse on them."
Employee: "Yes, but that doesn't make them real tickets. In fact, that's
a decal of Mickey stuck to them. It looks like they were made on a home
computer."
Lady: "Well, he SAID he was an authorized Disney ticket sales person,
and was wearing a hat with Goofy on it. Why would he lie about
that?"
Pissy and I are talking to a drug rep.
"So, doctors, this nasal spray contains batsonshazam, that can be used emergently to stop a seizure, or attack of seizures. It comes 2 units in a box, which is convenient, as it allows patients to keep one at home and one at work, or one in the car, so they can even use it if they have a seizure and lose consciousness while driving."
So today, me, and pretty much every doctor, veterinarian, nurse practitioner, and pharmacist in the country got this email:
Apparently the folks at the DEA (Drug Enforcement Administration) decided that people reading the rules about guidance didn't have enough guidance, and so needed some guidance. Or they just made a bet over the weekend on who could use the word "guidance" in an email the most:
Here's page 1 (page 2 is more of the same, so I'm not going to bother with it).
For those of you who went to college in the same era that I did, I keep thinking of the word "guidance" now in the same way I used to think of the phrase, "Hi, Bob."
I take my 11:30 patient back to my office.
Dr. Grumpy: "Hi, Don, have a seat. How are you doing?"
Mr. Epazil: "Sorry if I'm in a rush, doc."
Dr. Grumpy: "Everything okay?"
Mr. Epazil: "Yeah, but I have an appointment with Dr. Grumpy at 11:30. I think he's also in this building, but I can't remember where."
Me, Dr. Pissy, and our combined office staffs are having lunch with a drug rep.
Ms. Pharma: “That covers all the new info about Nomoshakin, so next time either of you sees a patient with refractory seizures, please keep Nomoshakin in mind. Any questions?”
Dr. Grumpy: “No, thank you.”
Ms: Rep: “Okay. Looks like we still have a few minutes, so let me tell you about Gramzap. This is our new, highly potent, highly absorbed, once-daily oral antibiotic. It has excellent coverage against many commonly encountered infections and…”
Dr. Pissy: “Do you have samples?”
Ms. Pharma: “Of course! Let me…”
Dr. Pissy: “Please leave them for Dr. Grumpy. Gramzap sounds better than the weekly shots he gets at the free clinic."
"I was in the ER last weekend for a seizure. They said my Kepdepatrol level was 4. Or maybe it was 8, actually, it could have been 14, or maybe 28. Whatever it was, it had either a 4 or an 8 in it, I'm not sure which. Does that help?"
