You know, one of the biggest challenges of my day is that many of my patients pluralize the word “test” by saying “testis.”
Probably because the S-T-S construction can be difficult to pronounce for some.
But you still can’t laugh.
No matter what the context.
Because that’s not kind or fair.
But it’s SO HARD sometimes!!!
You know what? This is the best idea for a one-man show I’ve ever seen. Kudos, Ben Egerman!
Here are a few excerpts.
I’d love to see it live, some day.
Thanks for the nice messages.
I did end up taking a day off of work. But it was only one day.
I’m pretty much back up to speed now.
Illness is gone…other than, you know…the requisite mucus rearrangement phase…
::cough,cough,snort,cough::
(Hey, I think I lost at LEAST 15 readers to that comment! 😀 )
….and therefore do not have the means to say anything that would have any impact on anyone.
Plus I have to go to work in a few hours.
From now on, when I admit patients on/around holidays, I will post the percentage of my admissions who turn out to be helpless, non-sick elderly people who have been dumped in the hospital by their “loving and concerned families”….just in time to get them out of the way for the holidays. (My favorite variation: when the family is completely uncontactable until the next business day, where they are OH-SO-RELIEVED-THAT-EVERYTHING-WAS-OKAY!)
I encourage any other admitting physicians with blogs to do the same.
So without further ado:
Happy Good Friday! — 33%
Dear Everyone:
I did not actually shave Spoon Avocado.
The post was an April Fools’ Day prank.
The naked cat pictured is actually a sphinx cat named Harlan, who belongs to my dear friends Lon and Shelley. He was not shaved, either. He just doesn’t have fur.
[In reality, I’m doing fine allergy-wise as long as I keep honest with my ceterizine and my allergen-free-zone bedroom (isolated with both kitty-non-admittance and changing clothes to clean and cat-hair-free outfits before I enter). SpAv is doing well hairball-wise with a combination of near-daily brushing and anti-hairball kitty treats.]
But oh, man! The responses! From my mom, from various concerned readers all expressing…a certain confused and carefully non-judgmental support for my “actions”….
First prize goes to my dad, whose hilariousness is tragically unsuitable for the more *ahem* polite corners of the interwebzes.
Second prize to my mom, who I guarantee that up until this moment, was trying to figure out how to politely say “Have you lost your !@#$ing mind?!” while scraping the corners of her credulousness to give me any benefit of the doubt she could possibly muster. (She may or may not have asked any cat-owning friends of hers whether or not this was a defensible action on my part…if so, I declare absolute victory over April Fools’ Day.)
Third prize to my cousin Julie and her awesome fiance, who thought it was a hilarious solution to the problem EVEN WHEN THEY THOUGHT I HAD SERIOUSLY DONE IT.
Fourth prize to Mary Robinette Kowal and Katie for actually figuring out that it was a prank. Lon gets points because it was his cat and therefore he was in on the joke. Mary also gets extra points because, let’s face it: her blog-based April Fools’ Day pranks set a bar so high you just have to reach for it.
My brother’s response?
Pending.
I don’t know if he’s seen this yet. I gave an extra day so he had the best chance of actually catching it before the reveal. But not every arrow hits the intended target, I guess. 😀
SpAv, on the other hand, is not amused with how much you all have delighted me. When I laugh too hard, my stomach becomes unsuitable for a kitty bed. She just stalked off and is giving me an incredibly dirty look. But I think she can deal.
Furrily.
Here’s the problem.
Spoon Avocado makes me sneeze like crazy. And she has this horrible hairball problem that has her puking every other day.
In short, we’re both miserable. And her fur is to blame for our misery.
So I went ahead and shaved her.
We’ll see how this works.
BEFORE
AFTER
How To Kill Your Imaginary Friends 