Allegory, parable, rhetoric – Page 17

Bagram AFB on Mother’s Day

7/2017

I work with one of the sweetest ladies I have ever met. She is married to an Air Force officer and her son is in the Air Force. She was trying her best to ignore Mother’s Day and her children were pestering her to hint at what she wanted or wanted to do for the holiday.

I had distributed a few of the Mother’s Day post to the Mothers that were working this year, but my friend wasn’t one of them. But, the next day she worked and found one of the leftover copies.

She said she laughed her @ss off and thoroughly enjoyed it. So she sent out copies to her children, including the one in the Air Force. She got an e-mail back that said that the Mother’s Day post was such a hit that he, her son, distributed it around the base at Bagram AFB, Afghanistan.

Hell, if it brought one smile, it was a success. Thanks to every Mother and Mother’s Son or Daughter in the service of this Country.

Your smiling, internationally published grumpy Uncle/Brother Dave.

http://igfiddles.com/wearywretch/mothers-day/

Weary

A Word and It’s Meaning

7/2017

Words do have meaning, if you can get them right.

Sure, words change with local usage and slang. For instance, the term “feminazi”, coined by Rush Limbaugh in the 1990s (IIRC), made it to Webster’s New Collegiate Dictionary within 1 year. “Bra”, abbreviated from Brazier was a brand name, like “Tylenol” for acetaminophen. So, I shouldn’t be surprised that my words change. For instance, consider the following.

Bipac. Should be Bipap for binasal (meaning both nostrils) positive airway pressure, a machine used to treat a variety of respiratory disorders.

Blood gasket. Should be blood gas, a blood test to measure the partial pressure of certain gases dissolved in the bloodstream like oxygen and carbon dioxide.

Stats. Should be sats, an abbreviation of the word saturation or the amount of a gas dissolved in a liquid.

Bamboo bag. Should be Ambu bag, a proprietary name of a self inflating bag valve arrangement used to provide breaths to a patient that is no longer breathing on their own.

Now, don’t go critical on me here. I’m not making fun of my patients, implying them ignorant or something. These terms were used by medical staff.

As I’ve said before, sometimes I feel there is no hope.

From your grumpy Uncle/Brother Dave.

Weary.

Gonadotropenia

7/2017

My mentor in graduate school did his best to talk me out of going to medical school. He would say, “You are going to have to learn Latin and memorize a bunch of drug names and stuff. You should stay in academia and pursue a career that is interesting.”

Learn Latin I did, kind of. Latin is easy. You can break down the word into parts and a lot of the parts are interchangeable. So once you learn a part, you know part of a lot of other words. Make sense? For Example, hypo appended to the front of a word means low. Like hypotension or low blood pressure. gonado refers to the sexual organs or gonads, specifically the ovaries in women or the testicles in men. tropo means to develop or enhance the effect of something and enia means low or an insufficient amount of something. See, clear as mud.

I like to make my own diagnoses, rather make up my own diagnoses.

Gonadotropenia. This applies to someone that needs to grow some balls and quit whining. This was prompted by a patient that called the ambulance to come to the ED because of a sore throat, for the third time this week.

From your 30 years weary Uncle/Brother Dave.

Weary.

TSA and the Terrorist

7/2017

I’ll bet you probably could have guessed what the US Transportation Security Administration was intended to do without my giving you this link. (1) And if you are too lazy to read it yourself, I’ll summarize the salient points here.

Mission
Protect the nation’s transportation systems to ensure freedom of movement for people and commerce.
Vision
Provide the most effective transportation security in the most efficient way as a high performing counter-terrorism organization.
Core Values
Integrity. Innovation. Team spirit.

But read it anyway, it is illuminating. Especially in light (no pun intended) of this report about an 82-year-old woman who got arrested in the Wichita airport for assaulting a TSA officer. (2)

All of this 120 lbs and 5’5″ of lean, mean, fighting machine with 82 years of combat experience was viewed as a threat to the transportation security of the largest superpower in the existence of the world using only her closed fist. See, watching those Bruce Lee films of the 1970s paid off (eg. Fists of Fury 2, 1976).

So, with respect to the Mission, they were able to ensure freedom of movement for the poor lady from the airport to the Sedgwick County jail. The Vision, maybe they succeeded in striking fear in the hearts of terrorists around the world since this made international media and now terrorists will think twice before coming to America. Ya think? And, the Core Values were upheld in that it did take more than one TSA officer to apprehend the 82-year-old woman.

And you wonder why I don’t like to fly.

Respectfully submitted by your grumpy Uncle/Brother Dave.

Weary.

Miserly Travel

7/2017

When traveling to vacation spots outside the Continental US, one needs to be very specific in booking your travel. Why I say this can be gleaned from this conversation with the desk clerk at a recent all-inclusive luxury vacation in Puerto Rico.

Hotel desk clerk, “Yes Mr. Ward, we have your reservation right here. You are in room 3126 for 3 nights. If I may ask, will you be needing a bed for your room.”

Me, ” Yeah, of course, I need a bed.”

Hotel desk clerk, “Very good sir, of course, that will be an additional $250 a day. Now did you need a refrigerator for your beverages?”

Me, “Well not if you are going to nickel and dime me for everything.”

Hotel desk clerk, “Of course not sir. Did you want linens for the bed or did you bring your own? They are an additional $25 per day.”

Me, “What?”

Hotel desk clerk, “Yes sir, and I might mention that the light bulbs for the room are an additional $10 each. Guests often use dusk in the evenings for romantic ambiance and avoid the extra charge. Which might I mark you down for, sir?”

Hotel desk clerk, “Sir, SIR, where are you going, sir? We haven’t finished checking you in yet Sir.”

And then there is the tipping.

And a $250 meal made with $4.53 worth of groceries and $6.77 worth of labor.

Hell, driving from the airport to the hotel, I was thrilled to see the price of fuel, $.94 per,,, , uh oops, per liter.

Just saying, travel isn’t all its made out to be, in my book. For what I spent, I could have bought a sailboat and spent 6 fun-filled months getting there and back. Maybe next time.

Vacation memories from your miserly, grumpy Uncle/Brother Dave.

Weary.