who pooped the hall? a tribute to it's always sunny

Let me preface this by saying that it's going to be much more entertaining to those of you who watch It's Always Sunny In Philadelphia, which puts the entertainment value at only slightly more than will be outweighed by the time and energy it takes to read this. but... you're here already, right? so read on....

To those of you familiar with the mystery of 'who pooped the bed' from season 4, i believe, of It's Always Sunny In Philadelphia, I had a similar mystery the other day. No, I did not poop the bed, nor did someone sleeping next to me poop the bed, mainly because nobody sleeps there next to me, but more than that, the mystery poop appeared at work. And no, again, it did not appear in a bed... there aren't beds at the clinic, and no, it did not appear in the toilet. That's not a mystery.

It was toward the end of the day, when I was in the office, down the end of a long hall which is lined by exam rooms. The hall leads to the front nurses station, and office, which are separated by a door, and front desk that meet the waiting room, full of toys, pretty landscapes painted on the wall, and a large tropical fish tank. It is easy to see that this is a Children's Clinic. I sometimes wish I could play in the waiting room. They even have a Plasma HDTV. Not too shabby.

Despite my wishes of waiting room playtime, I was stuck at the other end of the hallway, in the Physician's/Physician Assistant's office where we do our dictating, and whatever it is we do when we have a free moment. There are no toys in this room.

From my seat, I can peer out the door, and see most of the way down the hall, except for one room, which is hidden by a twist in the hallway. Other than that, I can see if I have a patient waiting for me...

It was in a peek such as this, that the other day I noticed a patient was waiting to be seen by me. So, I got up off my lazy butt, grabbed my stethoscope and headed meaningfully toward the room in which my patient was waiting. As I got only a few steps down the hallway, painted with leaves, hills, blue sky and birds.... I heard a "step carefully!" from one of the docs, and then noticed in my pace toward the exam room, a new piece of flare decorating the hallway; a turd.

I danced around it, no problem.

"Don't wanna get that on my shoe" I thought.

In retrospect, I'm surprised I didn't think it was weird, or gross, or even that funny. It got funnier later, when I had a second to think about it. But upon first pass, I just thought... "whoa, don't step on that log in the hallway."

And it was a log, not a little pebble of a turd, not a smear from a diarrhea related spurt from a little kid who just couldn't hold it. This was a solid, whole, formed adult sized poop.

It was only on the way back from seeing my patient, when I passed by the scene of the crime that I had a moment to think about it, to think of scenarios as to how turd ended up in the middle of the hallway. And, more than that, how no one seemed to know how it got there. It just appeared out of nowhere.

My mind thinks in movies... small movies, you could call them short, independent films, the kind that don't get released throughout the entire US, but just the trendy cities. They might win some accolades, some nerd movie awards, but not this one. All I could picture was some poor little kid, but not too little, judging by the size of the excrement, in the doctor's office for one reason or another. He's hating life, simply because he's here, probably for a runny nose - because that's what they're usually in for.

I sometimes picture them in the waiting room, these 3 year old kids, playing in the waiting room, like a prison yard.... "What are ya in for?" one would ask the other.... and after the obligatory "I'm innocent, I aint sick... my mom screwed me over, got me thrown in here!" one would admit, albeit reluctantly, after sneezing and creating two extraordinarily large green snot bubbles at the end of his nose.
"OK, I might have a runny nose."

And after a good ribbing by the innocent one, he'd get far too into his verbal assault and laughing that he'd suddenly vomit directly onto the pile of blocks with which they'd both been playing. He'd just look at the other.... "You didn't see NOTHIN'! Got it?!"

(Movies... you see. It's entertaining.)

Where was I... OH yea! So I imagine this poor kid, probably around 5 or so, much too old for a poop accident like this. He's sitting in jail, for something he didn't do, when it hits him.... "gurgle....grumble, grumble."

"Oh, sh..."

and in comes the doctor, "what's the deal with this runny nose?"

"gurgle, gurgle gurgle..." say his insides...

and he's much too little, and shy to say, "Please excuse me, I need to use the restroom." So he rides it out, just hopes that the schmuck hurries up with the listening to the lungs and wh.... wait, wait, why are you listening to my belly, no, no... it's fine, it's fine... for the love of GOD don't push on it!

"gurgle, grumble, grumble!" It's too much!

and just like that, it's over. the mystery poop has begun it's journey by escaping from the large colon, through the gates of sphincter, and into the dark, warm recesses of underwear-ville.

Now Brandon is in real trouble. He can't tell his mom that he pooped in his pants. he'll be in HUGE trouble... these are new underwear! He can't tell the doctor, he'll probably give him a shot! And he's not sure how, but the nurses are in on it too.

His only option is to escape, quietly and quickly, just the way he came in. Right down the long hallway, and out the front door. He'll have to dispose of the poop somewhere between here and home, cuz mom will surely smell it in the car on the way home.

The quandary of where to unload the poo is fleeting, for like the quandary itself, the poo doesn't stick around too long. It senses it's chance to go down in history as the mystery poop when Brandon slinks off the exam table.

Underwear be damned! It's all about pant leg now!

A short couple of steps later, behind mom, the turd finds freedom as it slips past the shoe and his the floor rolling, in all it's smelly, mysterious glory.

at least that's how i like to think about it. And i like to think about all the panic Brandon went through, and then the eventual triumph he must have felt in his perceived success.

it's a great story of, um... poop... and as Frank Reynolds once said "Poop is funny!"

I hope you enjoyed it.

Merry Christmas

a painful realization

i accidentally sliced my thumb open today while trying to chop up an onion. It was a really sharp knife, and it went sort of deep, into the pad of my thumb.

I proceeded to wash it out with some soap and water and let it bleed. and, knowing a thing or 3 about this kind of thing, i knew it would be best to irrigate the heck out of it. I started to do this by spraying water directly into the cut, and quickly came to the realization that I will always anesthetize a person before irrigating.

it did not feel good.

i did have some suture, which might have been a little overkill, but i also had some krazy glue.

i must say, the krazy glue worked quite nicely. it's the poor man's dermabond.

cn

Where it's at...I got two turn tables and a dictaphone.

I can remember, way back when, in a far off land that they call Ohio... a land of farms, amusement parks, people with unusually southern accents; a swing state... I can remember at this first rotation of mine hearing a doctor dictate so fast, that he sounded like the guy from the old micro-machine commercials. If you were a baby of the 80's... you know what I mean. If you weren't, or don't for some reason, youtube it here...

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=mlRgbU3ZJ5g

I was quite amazed, anyhow.

I can remember even further back, having to muddle my way through a number of dictations for school. It was painful, even with a cheat sheet. I could not believe that this would actually save time... and I certainly felt a little bit weird about the whole thing. It's more awkward than you'd think, Captain Kirk-ing your way through a patient encounter.

"Beeedle-dooodle-dee! Captain's log, star date 23.9, rounded off to... the nearest decimal point....." I have picked up this little gray device, and, started speaking into it... really fast, disregarding all human contact, or other occurrences in the room.

Weird.

Well....... that's what I thought at first.
But it didn't take more than a day for me to love it.

What's this? No more hand writing SOAP notes!?!? No gigantic H7P for a well child check?

Awesome.

Stellar.

Fantastic.

Fantasmagorical!

Don't call me captain kirk... but you can call me Captain Nerd. I don't care, dictating is sweet.

CN