So, to fix my ripped arm I’m on some moderately powerful drugs. Now when you hear moderately, powerful and drug in the same sentence you expect to hear the words, “and its side effects are…” (You might also hear the words Sky, Diamond and Goo Goo G’Joob, but those are not the kind that my doctor prescribes…At least during work hours. What she does during her off hours is entirely her business.) .

A pleasant surprise. I did not hear those words.

A less pleasant surprise. She handed me a folder. A folder of side effects, “Side Effects: A through M”, and another folder “Side Effects: M through Z”, and yet another, “Side Effects, 0 through 9, also including special symbols and punctuation marks excluding “!”.”, and finally, “Side Effects!”. That last folder was either exclaiming in surprise or in horror, or in horrified surprise.

“Side Effects! Yes, things that you could not imagine as side effects are in this folder. Bricks, Truffles, Cell Phones, Puppies, Promiscuous Capitalization, Sudden Stoppage of Life, Sphygmomanometers…”

“Wait, what was that last one?”

“Sphygmomanometers!”

“Eh?”

“Sphygmomanometers.”

“Ah.”

We weren’t quite done yet, “Side Effect…the Comic”, ”Side Effects the Song”

And that was it. They had me sign a waiver. Waivers make me nervous. You know that every waiver has a provision in there for your sudden untimely demise.

“I waive my right to the candy kept in the kitchen…and I completely understand that at any moment come to a sudden an untimely death and this sudden and untimely death is no fault of the creator of the waiver, even if he/she is directly responsible for the death, it is not their fault because I signed this waiver.”

Now, the moment I signed the waiver, they began to refer to me as the “Specimen”. It might just be me, but isn’t specimen a downgrade from patient? (Specimens are always patient, because most specimens are in a state of not being alive. Patients aren’t specimens all that often. I was the notable exception) Rarely do you see medical shows where the pretty doctors desperately try to save the specimen’s life. No, they dissect the specimen to save the patient’s life.

So, that was my naked ploy for sympathy. Did it work?