Happy Springtime!

(or Autumn, if you're on that side of the planet).

My favorite ode to spring, courtesy of the great Tom Lehrer:

Spring is here
Spring is here
Life is skittles and life is beer
I think the loveliest time
Of the year is the spring
I do, don't you? 'Course you do
But there's one thing
That makes spring complete for me
And makes every Sunday
A treat for me

All the world seems in tune
On a spring afternoon
When we're poisoning pigeons in the park
Every Sunday you'll see
My sweetheart and me
As we poison the pigeons in the park

When they see us coming
The birdies all try and hide
But they still go for peanuts
When coated with cyanide
The sun's shining bright
Everything seems all right
When we're poisoning pigeons in the park

We've gained notoriety
And caused much anxiety
In the Audubon Society
With our games
They call it impiety
And lack of propriety
And quite a variety
Of unpleasant names
But it's not against any religion
To want to dispose of a pigeon

So if Sunday you're free
Why don't you come with me
And we'll poison the pigeons in the park
And maybe we'll do
In a squirrel or two
While we're poisoning pigeons in the park

We'll murder them all
Amid laughter and merriment
Except for the few
We take home to experiment
My pulse will be quickenin'
With each drop of strychnine
We feed to a pigeon
(It just takes a smidgin!)
To poison a pigeon in the park

Semantics

 "What do you mean the drug doesn't work? We can't write that! Find a better way to say it!"

Happy Pi Day!

In honor of Pi Day, AKA Einstein's birthday...

 

Hi, this is Craig Grumpy.

A few years back, you may remember, I worked at Local Grocery's bakery.

One of my co-workers there (besides my sister) was Josie.

Josie was no pussycat, but was good at her job, except for the whole dealing-with-customers bit. Polite conversation was not one of her strong points. Because she was otherwise a good employee management tended to overlook this, and the rest of us tried to deal with people and let Josie do her thing in the back, mixing dough, baking stuff, decorating cakes, etc.

Unfortunately, this wasn't always possible, and there was an afternoon where she and I were the only ones on. She was out putting bagels on the shelves and I was leaning into the donut case, cleaning it for the next morning. So I didn't see a lady walk past a large display that said "PIES," and head for Josie... until it was too late.

Lady: "Excuse me! Where are the pies?"

Josie: "Uh, over there, behind you, on the left."

Lady: "Thank you."

The lady went over and began carefully inspecting the pies that were out. I turned back to the donut trays, glad that it had been straightforward.

In the meantime the lady was going through the pies, carefully reading each box (these are generic supermarket pies, folks). After a minute I realized she'd followed Josie back to the bakery counter and it was too late for me to run interference.

Lady: "Excuse me again!"

Josie: "Yes?"

Lady: "I was looking at your pies. Do you have any that are sugar free and gluten free?"

Long pause.

Josie: "Ma'am, this is a bakery."

Josie disappeared into the back.

Sigh

Look, calling my phone every 2 hours all weekend is NOT going to make your lab results come any faster.

You go, dude

Dr. Grumpy: "This is Dr. Grumpy, returning a page."

Dr. Hyper: "HI! THIS IS MIKE HYPER! I'M THE HOSPITALIST ON CALL OVER NIGHT, AND I NEED YOU TO HAVE A LOOK AT A GUY I THINK MAY HAVE HAD A SEIZURE! HE FAINTED OVER AT THE HOCKEY ARENA!"

Dr. Grumpy: "Okay, I'll swing by in the morning."

Dr. Hyper: "THAT SOUNDS GREAT! HANG ON, LET ME JUST GET MORE COFFEE HERE... ANYWAY, HE BIT HIS TONGUE, BUT DOESN'T HAVE ANY HISTORY OF SEIZURES!"

Dr. Grumpy: "Was he incontinent?"

Dr. Hyper: "HE CERTAINLY WAS! IN FACT, I CHECKED HIS PANTS MYSELF!"

Sunday afternoon

My current hospital consult is apparently unable to finish any sentence without putting the word "diarrhea" into it somewhere.

Quote of the day

 "I have insomnia, but it's only a problem when I'm trying to sleep."

Seen in charts

Here's some things you guys have sent in that somehow made it into medical records. Just remember folks, somewhere out there your doctor may be the culprit.

First, from the "wait, what?" department is this unusual treatment for anxiety:

 

"I guess it depends on what's making you anxious, nudge nudge wink wink"

From the "I'd like to buy a vowel" category cums comes this gem:

"I guess that's nudge nudge wink wink again"

From the case files of Captain Obvious, M.D. we have these notes:

and

 

 

And, lastly is this note from the "How lazy can you get?" department:

 

This brings back memories from when I worked at the VA 30 years ago. A patient would come to the floor, and the admitting note said "Past history: see old chart." The old chart was inevitably at least 5 volumes, each one 3-4 inches thick.

Random pictures

 Okay, time to hit the mailbag for stuff you guys have sent in.

First off, we have this label from a home sander:

Next is this, from the insanely long line for Radiator Springs Racers at Disneyland:

"That's tongue in cheek... I didn't mean it that way."

In a tribute to capitalism, I have to respect the location of this cookie store:

Love these stupid ads. Here's a tip: don't try to sleep in the surf. Was this Harold Holt's idea?

 

 

 

 

 

Lastly, since we're on the subject of things to help you sleep, Netflix wants to play "one of these things is not like the others."

Modern technology

After having one for a few months, I highly recommend the Amazon Ring to anyone who's ever wanted to see regular pictures of themselves, in pajamas and a robe, carrying out the trash.

Kill me

Currently trapped in line at a pharmacy behind a woman demanding generic Emgality and refusing to leave until she gets it. So I guess I'll be here until 2034.

Memories

Dr. Hurricane was an attending where I trained.

He was one of these people who lived at warp speed. While he was a good teacher, and had an excellent fund of general neurology knowledge, it was all limited by his frenetic manic speaking style of rattling off facts, statistics, and teaching points at an insanely high speed on rounds. In fact, he reminded us of John Moschitta, the star of FedEx commercials in the 1980's.

Yeah, and that was what Dr. Hurricane sounded like on a slow day.

I carried a clipboard and notebook with me on rounds, and would frantically, if unsuccessfully, try to keep up with his teaching points. This only resulted in severe hand cramps and my notebook bursting into flames.

Another resident, Karl, made the immortal comment that "Dr. Hurricane doesn't talk. He has lip fasciculations."

In clinic, patients were terrified of him. Not for him actually being threatening, but for his ability to rapidly give them the entire diagnosis and treatment plan in about 10 seconds, at a speaking frequency far beyond the ability of others to discriminate individual words. Dr. Hurricane blew into the room, Dr. Hurricane blew out of the room, leaving a prescription behind, fluttering gently in the breeze.

And, of course, I (the resident) was left standing there as the patients asked "what did he just say?"

Damned if I knew. Their guess was as good as mine.

 

Taking a break for a few weeks

 See you next year!

Up front

Several months ago Mary and her family got a new puppy. He's still a puppy, but these days he's a 70 pound puppy.

He has a lot of energy.

She and her husband both work, and the kids are in school, so for a few hours each day Monster puppy and his den mates have free run of the kitchen and family room, with a doggie door when they want to venture out. The other dogs are older and sedate. Monster is anything but, and began randomly destroying things he found (toys, clothes, furniture, wall hangings, light fixtures, Amazon drivers, etc.).

So, since Mary spends her office day staring at a screen scheduling my victims patients, she hooked up some cameras and a speaker in the dog area at home. So now she sits at work and keeps an eye on Monster, occasionally telling him to get off the couch or stop mangling the postman. The other 2 dogs don't care, but the effect on Monster is hysterical. He looks up and around in terror, like people in old movies when God speaks to them.

Anyway, one afternoon last week Mary was doing her usual thing. She'd just checked in a new patient, who'd picked up a copy of "Good Housekeeping" and sat down in the lobby. She was then rescheduling another patient when she happened to glance up at the corner of her screen and saw Monster in the process of destroying one of her kid's toys.

Without thinking she grabbed her microphone and yelled "YOU DROP THAT RIGHT NOW AND GO OUTSIDE!!!"

The elderly woman in the lobby startled, dropped the magazine on the floor, and ran out of the office in terror.

She hasn't come back.