How to win friends and influence people. By TC Carnegie

If you aren't a REALLY sick puppy, don't read this or you will die.

I went to the Kaiser clinic today to have the stitches taken out from my knee operation on the 15th.  I took them out a week ago, but I had the appointment and I wanted to take the pictures of my face.

I checked in and then walked over to my doctor's nurse - who was kicking around until the doctor came back from 'rounds' at the hospital.  I banged on the window and she opened it...

"OMG!  What's wrong with your face?"

"HEY!  You ain't Megan Fox yourself!"

"No, I mean what's that all over it?"

"If the dermatologist doesn't find out - AND FIX IT - on Wednesday, it's your worse nightmare.  This is ruining my life.  When I go barhopping with JohnJohn, he gets all the girls!"

"JohnJohn?"

"Yeah.  Johhny Depp.  He and I are like this:  (I try to snap my fingers, but miss - so I had to make up a quick story that there was no TP on the roll this morning and I forgot to wash after wiping - so my fingers are slippery.  That grossed the OTHER nurse out [snicker].)

"You know Johhny Depp?"

"Not exactly - but that's not important right now.  What's important is that even dogs won't lick me anymore - so what will happen when Megan Fox comes knocking?"

"Ummm...Tom... there is something I need to tell y"

"I don't want to hear any excuses, Missy!  You give these pictures to Margaret and tell her I didn't pick her, a pediatrician, as my Primary Care Provider for nothing!  Mt face is as soft as a baby's butt and I ain't gonna look like Perez Hilton."

For some reason the silly nurse was laughing like mad and I couldn't get another word in - so I went to my orthopedic appointment.

I checked into orthopedics and am ushered into a mini-operating theatre.  Judging from what's hanging on the wall, they give colonoscopies to elephants.  The nurse, who missed my blood pressure by an order of magnitude three weeks ago immediately asked : "OMG!  What's wrong with your face?"

I'm tired of that already so I said "The flesh-eating virus. There is no cure for it."  She ran out and put on a mask, gown and gloves.

Then she tried to take my BP again and flubbed it.  I had just taken it with the  computerized Sphygmomanometer before she came in.  118/66.  She did it manually and read 135/85.  She starts asking me questions and I start lying.  She dutifully puts my answers into the computer without thinking about whether or not they could possibly true - I think she is busy worrying about the virus hopping onto her.  Finally she got around to asking: "You are here for post-op stitch removal?" 

"Yeah, but the doc better have some protective gear - this stuff jumps from person to person."

She ran out of the room. In a few minutes the doc comes in, gets me up on the table, turns on the lights, wheels out the cart with about a dozen various tools, covers me up with some plastic shit, covers my leg up, puts on protective eyewear and looks at my knee. It took him a few minutes to adjust the lights over each incision and examine it until he finally realized there are no stitches.

I'm thinkin' 'Lord, what fools these mortals be. This is a doctor.'

He says to me...seriously... "There are no stitches."

"OMFG!"  I said...as seriously as I could..."Do you mean the surgeon FORGOT TO PUT IN THE STITCHES?!?!?!?!?!?!"

"Wait just a second."  He runs out of the room - I'm trying VERY hard not to pee myself.  In a few minutes he comes back in without all the protective gear on. "YOU took those stitches out!"  He makes a face.

"Who...ME?!?!?!?"  I am sweetly angelic in my innocence.

"AND YOU DON'T HAVE ANY FLESH-EATING VIRUS!"

"OK, I might have exaggerated that a bit.  But no one knows, so it's best to be safe, isn't that true?"

So, when I left the clinic - which was pretty much immediately - I decided I needed a haircut.  I go the the barber shop and walk in.  "What's wrong with your face?"

OK - this is a barber shop.  Different rules of etiquette apply but there are still things you need to know. (1) NEVER joke with anyone who can use a straight razor. (2) ONLY joke with someone you know REALLY, REALLY well, and can outrun.

"The same truck hit it that's about to hit yours!  You ain't Brad Pitt yourself!

"No - I mean what's that shit all over it?"

"How old are your granddaughters?"

"Well....let me think...seventeen and fourteen and....."

"OK, the next number you get to is the contagious one."

I had more fun than that - and exercised my knee running away from the barber shop - but Jeff just called and wants me on an hour early - so I'm out.  Catch the Rense show (at Rense.com) the bottom of the hour.  It's always worth the time.