Raindrops Keep Falling on my Head.

So I haven't written for a while.  Certainly not because of lack of material.  This one happened this morning.

I was sitting at my desk, checking my email at cerca 6:45 am.  I was drinking my coffee out of a blue GWU mug, all natural, the way I like it...Costa Rican blend, fresh out of my Mr. Coffee, with Splenda, chocolate syrup, and pumpkin spice Coffee Mate.  I like to refer to it as the 'Dentist's Delight'.  Whatever.  I'm still convinced that the whole wisdom tooth debacle is just a big conspiracy anyway. Well, at least I was drinking my liquid crack out of a straw, so it makes everything ok.

I munched on my cereal.  Naturally, I once again blended 3 different types of cereal.  Trader Joe's low fat almond granola (for the outdoorsman in me), All-Bran Bran Buds (for the med student in me), and Weetabix (for the grandpa in me).  All topped off with a nanner and organic vanilla soymilk.  Perfect.  So I thought.

So, as I ate, I was distracted by Gmail.  A new email from my roommate, who is sitting roughly 5 feet away from me, though separated by plaster and an Anatomy poster (for the dork in me).   He's sorry for being grumpy yesterday.  Dude, it's ok.  We're in med school; you can pull a Rampage World Tour on Foggy Bottom, and I would totally understand...no need for apologies.  So, yeah, my cereal.  After eating for about 5 minutes, I take another large chomp.  I expected to receive a bite of goodness, but instead I got funky monkey.  I look in my bowl, and see something unusual: there's an ominous white clump roughly 3cm in diameter stuck at the soymilk/air level.  It strangely resembled bird shit.  Naturally, I look up.  No birds.  Phew.   I look to the right.  No holes in my window.  Phew.  I look to the left.  Clifford, my betta fish, is still pleasantly swimming in his bowl.  I'm truly baffled.  I've been in school my whole life, but nothing in my past education prepared me for this moment.  I poke 'the blob' a few times.  It didn't move.  Phew.  I'm still baffled.  Should I call The Ghostbusters?  Nah, instead I poured my feast down the drain, and made a birdshitless English Muffin with raspberry jelly and natural peanut butter.  Still baffled.  Weird.

Casper the Friendly Ghost

This happened yesterday.  

My alarm goes off.  I catapult out of bed, and see that it's 4:50 am.  You know you're on a general surgery rotation when 4:50 am is the latest you've woken up in 2 weeks.  Oy vey!  There are only 2 words bouncing across my mind, as per usual: neeeeeeeed fooooooooooooood.  I stumble into the landfill that I commonly refer to as 'my kitchen', and help myself to my usual breakfast-of-kings.  I mix 3 types of cereal, Kashi Go-Lean Crunch, Trader Joe's Lowfat Mixed Berry Granola, and All-Bran Bran Buds (which have 13 grams of fiber in a 1/3 cup serving...just throwing that out there!), and douse my meal in Vanilla Soymilk.  Zoinks, I ran out of bananas...sadface.  Oh well, by the time I'm done with Bingefest 2009, I still feel like I'm 7 months pregnant, despite the dearth of bananas.

I get to Holy Cross Hospital, and do my normal check-ups on patients whose legs I helped cut off the previous day.  I suspect that I have zero concept of what's normal these days.  I meet at the Holy Cross Breast Center at 7 am, just in time for a conference I'm required to attend.  Before I walk in the door, I see a handwritten note saying something about "Turkey Day Today".  Sweet!  I love Thanksgiving!  I hope there are still leftovers for breakfast #2 today.  Wait, it's July 24.  Mike, stop hallucinating, I tell myself.  As I enter the Breast Center, I realize that I'm not hallucinating.  First time for everything, I suppose.  I'm greeted by an unwrapped raw whole turkey chilling next to an Ultrasound machine.  I giggle and snap a quick photograph with the camera on my cell phone, just because.  Would it be weird if a doctor walked by me when I was taking a picture of a raw turkey, I wonder.  Oh well, it's worth it.  The mystery begins to unravel itself; after a few minutes, I'm instructed to use the Ultrasound to find an olive that's embedded somewhere inside of the turkey, and to take a core needle biopsy of the olive once I've found it.  If I had a nickel for every time someone told me to do that...I'd have roughly 5 cents.  I have the Ultrasound probe in my left hand, and the needle in my right hand, and delicately place my left hand with the probe on the gobbler.  A resident encouragingly and enthusiastically tells me to "cup the breast!" with my hand.  I take my biopsy.  "Hehe, that was fun!", I say.  The residents laugh at me.  "You know you've been in med school too long when this is your idea of fun on a Friday", I say.  

I look at the time; I'm running late!   I have to drive to Largo, MD to spend my morning at a  surgery clinic.  I get on the Capital Beltway going in the wrong direction.  Ugh.  I finally make it to the clinic after half an hour or so, wearing my dress clothes and white coat, and find the doctor that I'm supposed to work with.  She seems strange, I think, as I greet her and she immediately starts shaking her head and mumbling something about hernias.  The doctor turns to her computer to check the list of patients for the morning, while I'm standing right next to her.  And then it happens.  I fart.

  

Way to go, Mike.  Way to go.  Talk about first impressions.  As the result of what must have been a divine miracle, my fart is silent.  Thaaaat was close.  30 seconds later, the doctor starts starts sniffing.   Oh, shit!  The realization hits me: silent but deadly.  

Fuck you, Kashi!  Damn you, Trader Joes!  Go to hell, All-Bran!  I'm screwed, and see no way out of my predicament.

The doctor calls one of her nurses over.

"What the hell is that smell?  I need you to make a phone call for me", the doctor says.

"Mmmhmm", responds the nurse.

"Call the building's operator.  I think there's a garbage truck outside, and I think the air from around the truck is drafting in to our office.  Tell them to move the garbage truck, please."

The nurse looks confused, but she does as the doctor asks.

Meanwhile, I'm standing there, deer-in-the-headlights style.

The nurse comes back momentarily.  "Doctor, they're laughing at you", she says.  "There's no garbage truck outside, and all the air gets vented directly to the top of the building".

"Oh, well then", the doctor says.  "Something must have died out there."

I turn purple, and spend the next 3 hours trying to choke down my laughter.  Awkward!

Peppermint Schnapps

This one happened 2 days ago.

Ok, so I trip a lot.  I look at my sandals, and notice that both of them are pretty much totally worn through to the bottom.  In hopes that purchasing new sandals will solve all of my life's problems, I head out with a friend in search of a new pair.  Should be pretty normal, right?  Yeah, right.

H&M in Georgetown.  5 pm.  I don't like the sandals, so I do the next best thing: I try on a green shirt.  I look hideous.  Hmph, maybe it's not the shirt, I wonder, as I tear off the shirt and escape from the dressing room as fast as I can.  I meet said friend downstairs; she wants to purchase a shirt before we continue our sandal-scavenger hunt.  As we get in line, there's 1 person in front of us.  "Does this make me look prudish?"  I look up, and see a female creature looking back at me.  The 1 person in line was one of those people who could have been anywhere from 19 to 91 years old.  I've heard the phrase, "nothing is impossible" many time throughout my life; however, it was truly impossible to accurately label this creature on a scale of grape to raisin.  She was wearing an outfit that looked like she should be on her way to a Christmas party.  Oh yeah, it's July.  That's normal.  When I looked at her, only 2 words came to mind: candy cane.

"What?" I ask, thinking that I misheard what she said.

"Does this make me look prudish?

She is holding up a flesh-colored wrinkled skirt.  I have zero sense of style, but I intuitively knew that this was the kind of skirt that you need to meet 3 criteria to wear: 1. Your name must be Olga; 2. You must be a troll; 3. You must eat babies.

"Yes.", my friend responds, in a I'm-not-gonna-yank-yo-chain-or-bust-yo-balls kind of way.

The Candy Cane turns to me for a second opinion.

"Anything that you're wearing looks beautiful", I say.  I somehow manage to keep a straight face.  The next thing I know, I'm being hugged by a Candy Cane.  Not a quick hug, either.  It most certainly involved several pats on the back.  Was she drunk?  Sadly, I begin to suspect that she's totally sober.  She proceeds to purchase Olga's skirt.  To make things even stranger, she then begins to try on articles of clothing, one-by-one, from the pile that she placed on the counter along side the cash register.  She then asks the poor, poor cashier for her opinion of several of the items.  Phew, I guess I'm off the hook.

Or not.  Candy turns around again, this time holding a leopard-print bikini bottom.  Only the bottom.  I smile and say, "Now THAT makes you look prudish", in those exact words.  An odd honking noise comes out of her; I suspect it was a laugh.  She once again starts trying on various articles of clothing; my friend suggest that I take her shirt and walk to a different line, while she waits behind Candy.  I agree.  A relay-race!  Sounds fun.  I try not to glace at Candy...but it's somewhat like looking into the sun; you don't want to do it, you know you'll regret it, but you do it anyways.  Candy is looking in my direction, and smiling.  Hot damn, that's creepy.

I win the relay-race (insert gasp-of-surprise here), and friend comes over to my line to pay for her shirt.  We leave, luckily without any further minty encounters.  We go to Banana Republic, where I try on a size small green shirt with an elephant on it, because it's green and has an elephant on it.  The shirt is too big.  Hmph, maybe I'm not an elephant afterall. 

We go to Urban Outfitters.  The only sandals that fit me look like a zebra vomited on them.  I'm about to try on a shirt with a pelican on it, when my friend comes up to me and says, "I lost my earring".  She thinks it fell off while trying on a shirt back at Nanner Commonwealth.  We leave without buying anything, and go back to Plantain Federation.  We go straight to the cashier.  "Have you found an earring that looks like this?"  My friend shows the cash-lady the remaining earring.  

"Yes," the cashier says.  "But then I lost it."  And she was serious.

Smooth Criminal

This happened 2 days ago.  So I'm in the GW bookstore, looking at books for my 3rd year of med school.  Naturally, I have no idea what I need, so decide to use my 3rd lifeline, and phone a friend.

"Do I need to buy Tarascon Pharmacopoeia and The Sanford Guide to Antimicrobial Therapy?"

"Just buy The Sanford Guide to Antimicrobial Therapy."

"Sweet.  Thanks.  Peace."

An Asian chick overhears my conversation.  "Are you just beginning your 3rd year rotations?", she says.

"Yup.  Are you in med school too?", I ask.

"Not anymore.  I'm a resident now."

"Oh, awesome, I'm jealous!  Are there any books you recommend for the surgery rotation?"

"Yeah definitely", she says.  As she imparts me with her medical wisdom, I accidently walk into a bookshelf, almost knocking the thing over.  That was smooth, Mike, real smooth.  I make some awkward comment about almost knocking the entire bookstore over.  Luckily, she smiles.

After a few minutes, I thank her for her advice, and we part ways.  I do a lap around the medical textbook section, looking for some of the titles that my new friend just recommended to me.  I could not tell you how or why, but I somehow manage to walk into another bookshelf, making a fair bit of noise, and I cause the shelf teeter a bit.  I spin my head around in a circle, exorcist style, to make sure that there were no witnesses to my latest display of klutz.  Ok...fine, I turned my body along with my head.  As I turn around, I see an Asian resident giving me an odd look.  Aaaaawkward!  I wonder how long it will be until I'm assigned to work with her during my clinical rotations. 

Orange-You-Glad-I-Didn't-Say-Banana?

So this one happened about 3 months ago.  Friday afternoon.  I receive an email from a dear female friend of mine: 'Mike, come to an erotica art exhibit with me tonight.  I know you'll keep me entertained.'  Random?  Extremely.  But who could say no to an offer like that?  Little did she know just how right she was.

After several hours of grueling suspense, evening finally rears her head.  I throw on a yellow button-down shirt.  I hope I don't look too much like a banana.  Oh well.  At least I'm a good source of potassium.  I meet my friend at the Dupont metro, and we head over to Georgetown.  We spend some time meandering around the C & O Canal (pun intended!), and we finally find the art gallery nestled on a Georgetown side street.   We walk through the entrance, and make our way past a small crowd.  My jaw dropped at the sight that lay before my eyes.  Nobody had prepared me for what lay just several feet in front of me.  'This can't be happening', I thought.  There was free wine!!!  Giggity!

I wake up naked in the C & O Canal the next morning.  Just kidding...I hope.

Ok, so really, after 2 cups of boxed sangria, my friend and I make our way around the art exhibit.  We approach a photograph of a topless, well-developed woman.  "Oh, look, she's a 5 on the Tanner scale of breast development", my friend says.  Yup, we're definitely med students.  She then explains to me the characteristics of each stage of breast development.  Sweet.  I learned something new, AND I got free wine...what a night!  Just past the gigantic photograph of the labia (which was larger than me), we saw the main exhibit.  There were 5 artists; each artist was busy creating a new painting, right there in the gallery.  But instead of using canvass, the artists were painting naked people.  There was 1 young, beautiful woman being painted, as well as 4 middle-aged, out of shape men.  Well, there's something I've never seen before.

About 5 minutes later, 2 naked women walk through the crowd and stand on top of a podium, ready to present an award to some artist.  I was excited to make use of my new piece of medical knowledge.  "Oh, look, they're both fives!", I say.  Amongst my excitement, my voice was much louder than I intended.  Given my luck, I spoke at the exact moment as an awkward silence fell upon the crowd, just as the 2 women prepared to present their award.  I'm pretty sure most people in the gallery heard what I said.  And I'm don't think they knew I was referring to the Tanner stage of breast development.  Aaaaawkard!  Shit.

A few minutes later, my friend and I are walking around the exhibit some more, and the place gets somewhat crowded.  We weave in and around other people, in attempt to see the remaining paintings and photographs.  I feel someone gently tap my left shoulder.  I turn around, and find myself face-to-face with a naked, freshly painted, middle-aged, out of shape man.  All he says to me is, "By the way, there's now orange paint on your back."

What!?

2 weeks later.  I'm at work.  I spend the day performing physical examinations on patients, drawing blood, administering vaccinations, and the like.  The day draws to an end, and I head over to The Brickskeller with my friend slash co-worker.  We need a drink like woah.  I flip through the menu: Lagers and Tia Maria and beers, oh my!  My friend says to me, in a totally nonchalant manner, "Oh, by the way, I've been meaning to ask you this all day.  What the hell is on your back?"  I look at my shirt.  I'm wearing a yellow button-down.  It finally dawns on me that my friend is referring to the large orange spot on the back of my yellow shirt,  the same yellow shirt which I totally forgot to have dry-cleaned.

I crack up.  "I could tell you, but you probably won't believe me", I say.

Oink

This one happened just a few weeks ago. So there I was, working at Mr. Yogato, on what I thought was a typical Tuesday evening.  I was binge-eating Reese's Peanut Butter Cups, mango, Oreos, agave nectar, mochi, raspberries, Junior Mints, blackberries, tequila, wait scratch that last one, coconut, gummy bears, granola, Captain Crunch, kiwi, and of course a plethora of shots of tangy yogurt, as per usual.  Oh yeah, and I'd even periodically serve a customer amongst the gluttony fest.  "How many toppings?", "If you come for 30 days in a row, we'll even name a flavor after you!", "Yes, I'm single.", "No, why ever would I be sick of hearing 'Mr Roboto' over and over and over and over and over and over again?", "It's pronounced 'Yang-ohh-muh-saang-ohh.", "No, the olive oil isn't a joke.", "Tangy is my favorite!", "Yes, we have a bathroom (you drunk POS)", "No, we're not related to Pinkberry.", "Do you want a forehead stamp for 10% off?", "No, I'm not THE Mr. Yogato.", "Do you want fries with that?  Shit, I mean Fruity Pebbles!", "No, I can't give you the yogurt recipe.".  "Yes, we're hiring.  And no, you don't have to smoke crack to work here.", "No, I don't put Old Bay on my yogurt!".  And so on.

And then it happened.

Me:  "Yup, feel free to help yourself to any of the toppings above the bar here.  They're all free!"

Middle-aged female customer wearing glasses: "That's what she said."

I lost it.  For those of you who know me, you've probably figured out by now that my laugh sounds shockingly similar to a pig falling down the stairs.  Yup, there it was, my laugh, out of the blue, full-forced, right in the face of a poor, unsuspecting, middle-aged female customer.  So, yeah, the customer was referring the the fact that her female compadre had already mentioned the free toppings.  But it didn't matter...I couldn't help it.  She had no idea why I was practically in tears (saying "that's what she said", and actually meaning it!).  She gawked at me, and quickly scurried out of the store, yogurt in hand, probably never to return.  My trusty co-worker shot me an "Oh Mike, only you..." sort of look.

Frida Kahlo

So this happened about 6 months ago.  Dupont Circle.  Cerca 9:00 pm.  Eastern Standard Time.  Brisk winter night.  I have about half an hour to kill before a holiday party.  Hmph, whatever shall I do?  Well, I'll just walk up and down the same block of Connecticut Avenue.  On my 2nd lap, I get stopped.  By a homeless man.  He says, "I know those eyebrows."

"What?"

"I've seen those eyebrows before!"

"Huh?"

"Your eyebrows!"

"Um, thanks?"

I scurry away.  I start doing laps around Dupont Circle, instead of on Connecticut Ave.

4 months later.  11:45 pm.   I'm walking to the metro after a gluttonous evening of working at Mr. Yogato.  I turn, and am about to begin my descent into the dark abyss that is the Dupont South metro station.  There's a man standing by the top of the escalator.  As I pass him, he says, "I know those eyebrows!"

"What?"

"I've seen those eyebrows before!"

"Uh, ok."

Same man.  Same eyebrows.

Jabba the Hut

So this is what happened to me yesterday.  You know, just a typical Wednesday afternoon in my life.

After being lost for the first 25 years of my life, and following 9 years of driving like a grandma, I decided it's finally time to buy a GPS for my car.  Should be pretty simple, yeah?  I drive over to Best Buy, and park my car on the street.  After pressing buttons on different GPS systems for a few minutes, the salesman comes up to me and says, "You've been here before".  Ruh roh.  He remembers me.  About 3 weeks ago, I came to the store to look for a GPS.  I spent about an hour looking at different types, and he recommended I buy the Garmin.  Naturally, I feel like he's trying to rip me off.  I see my chance. When he's not looking, I awkwardly run away and leave the store without buying anything.

So here I am.  Same store.  Same salesman.  3 weeks later.  "Buy the Garmin", he says.  I ask to see other models, and he tells me to look at the TomTom.  When I'm playing with this new device, I have a few questions for him.  I try to get his attention, but apparently he was busy.  He was doing pushups on the ground a few feet away from me.  Ok, that's real normal.  I let him finish his workout.  "But I'm an impoverished student", I say.  "Fine, then get the TomTom." I'd save about $40.  I'm Jewish, so naturally that sounds like a good idea.  Just to make sure I'm not making a mistake, I call my friend who actually knows about technology.  He's busy, he'll call me back.  After hanging around the store for 20 minutes (while trying to avoid the Rambo-of-a-salesman), I decide to buy the TomTom, as well as a pair of green headphones (just because...why not?).  I leave the store.  I have a voicemail from my friend.  "Buy the Garmin", he says.  Humbug.  I don't want to see the salesman again, and I have dinner plans...so I decide to return it tomorrow as I walk back to my car.  Only my car isn't there.  I see the car that I parked next to being towed away.  Awesome.  Then I notice the 'No Parking After 4pm or You Will be Subject to the Guillotine' sign stealthily placed under the green 'Yayyyyy You Can Park Here for Free if You Sold Your Soul to the DC DMV to Get a Zone 3 Parking Permit' sign.  After walking home, I call the number that was on the stealthy sign.  She tells me my car was towed 2 blocks away from where I was parked in the first place.  Awesome.  I walk back.  I realize I'm a block away from Best Buy again.  Ugh.  I still have my TomTom in hand, so I walk back in the store.  There's Rambo.  "Yeahhh, I'm going to go with the Garmin afterall", I say.  He gives me a weird look...the kind of look that I probably would have gotten if I walked into the store wearing a hippopotamus costume.  I complete the exchange, and leave the store, hopefully forever.  Naturally, I set off the metal detectors on my way out.  I walk to where my car was towed, and get inside.  Finally.

So, I stick in my keys, and try to start the engine.  Naturally, the key won't turn.  Then I notice that the steering wheel is backwards.  Sweet.  I try to turn the wheel to its normal position, but stop when I hear crunching noises.  It's about 90 degrees outside, and I'm sweating my arse off.  I call the number from the stealthy sign again.  The lady remembers me.  "My steering wheel is backwards.  Help?!"  

"What?"

"My steering wheel is backwards!"

"Ummmmm ok shugah, I'll send help."

"I love you."

After sauteing myself in my car for 15 minutes, I see a tow truck pull up next to me.  What I think is a man comes toward my car.  He strangely resembles Jabba the Hut.  Please don't eat me!  Phew, he doesn't.  That was a close one...thank goodness I exercise!  Instead, he has me twist my key in the ignition and the steering wheel at the same time, and it magically the wheel twists back to it's normal position.  Thanks Jabba!  Clearly, they could not have told me to do that over the phone...but they had to dispatch the Star Wars cast to my car.  He makes slurping noises, and slithers away, probably back to the Cantina.  Ok, fine, he didn't really slup, but I wouldn't have been surprised if he did.  I drive home, newly clad with a Garmin GPS, green headphones, and a $100 parking ticket.  Just another normal Wednesday afternoon.