Sunday, March 27, 2011

Just in time for March: April!

If Denny's gave out fortune cookies, there'd be one that says "You again?"

Enlightenment should never venture out unaccompanied by self-awareness.

You aren't crazy. I'm not crazy. We just buy different brands of Normal.

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Up next on Country Station WISC:

She went back to the party and made me independent.

He took up with a Walker, now our union's on the curb.

She's right, I'm left, it's wrong.

South of the border, down Illinois way.

She's Keepin' Madison Honest, I'm Keepin' Milwaukee Famous.

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FUN AT THE DOCTOR'S

I went recently to see my nutritionist. Every visit, they have me take off my shoes and socks, and stand on an electronic scale – a metal plate – connected to a computer, that also apparently can tally up such exotic measurements as body fat, muscle mass, pulse rate and such, while it mundanely records weight too. I hopped on, in what has become a routine, and the nurse monitoring my numbers on-screen casually danced her fingers on the keyboard with a chirpy "all done!" I put my shoes back on and followed her to the examination room, where I'd wait for my doctor.

While I sat in yawny meditation, staring at the back issues of "Shape" and "Self" magazines, my ears caught what sounded like a sudden commotion outside the door of the exam room – something a little out of the norm for a sedately efficient doctor's office. I leaned in the chair, toward the door, nudged it open a slight crack, and peeked out. Apparently, from what I heard, there was a woman wandering around the medical complex somewhere, whose numbers were so out of whack, that she was a walking emergency... and no one could find her.

Several nurses hustled about – that double-fast clip that indicates their next step is to whip out cell phones and alert security. At every turn of the corner: "Did you find her?" "No, they're looking down the hall, in the restroom..." Etc. Etc. Etc.

At once, one of them said something like, "hold it..." I think I was the only one who heard this, because nobody else sounded like they were "holding it." The nurse who had weighed me, entered the room where I was. "Robert...?"

"That's me," I said, "long time, no see." I grinned, in my usual, habitually annoying, just-made-a-funny custom.

She was looking at my scale print-out. "Oh good gawd..." This didn't sound good. "I marked you down as female." She then turned and addressed the rest of the office. "Hold up, everyone." The mysterious wandering woman about to explode, had been located. It was me. The numbers were perfectly fine, for a man. A man my size.

For the next five minutes, as she took me back to the electronic broiler plate to re-weigh me as the correct gender, I was the center of attention amid an entire office of 20- and 30-something females carrying clipboards and thermometers. I'll take what I can get.