Category: Health care

Looks just like a penis, only smaller

~ Patrick O'Grady ~ 30 Comments
“It’s down here somewhere. …”

The Pestilence has been diagnosed with Chronic Penis Insufficiency*, which should surprise approximately no one.

According to the usually fabricated sources his condition has become so dire that two aides are compelled to help him find it come time to pee.

As the first sprinkles pepper into his unzipped trousers, the second stands at the ready, holding a powerful magnifying glass and tweezers. When the little fella reveals its location by sneezing, the second aide spots it with the glass, grabs it with the tweezers, and aims it at the gold-plated toilet.

Mission accomplished!

It’s a process both delicate and cumbersome, as the two aides are immediately fired, gagged with NDAs, and deported to Lower Spaminacanistan before they can run giggling to the press. And thus replacements must be found. Repeat ad infinitum.

*Oh, pardon me. He has chronic venous insufficiency, not the other thing. As far as we know. …

Meeeee-OW!

~ Patrick O'Grady ~ 20 Comments
“One of these nine lives it’s gonna be me putting you in a plastic satchel and taking you to the vet.”

Miss Mia Sopaipilla is resting comfortably in her custom BedCave® after having a cyst removed from just above her right eye.

One day the thing was just sort of … there, like bad news from DeeCee. So I took her to the vet to get it checked out. Vet drains it and says: “Full disclosure: These things can come back, sometimes almost immediately, and occasionally even bigger.”

The only real fix is to take it off, she added.

Well, it did come back, almost immediately. And it looked bigger, but pretty much everything does when it’s front and (off) center on your furry friend’s face.

Thus, we scheduled the surgery, which took place yesterday. And now we can’t call her “Knothead” anymore.

God only knows what she calls us.

The Nanofesto: writing a wrong

~ Patrick O'Grady ~ 14 Comments
Do the write thing.

When the John Laws collared their suspect in the CEO assassination he was said to have had in his possession a ghost gun, some fake I.D., and a 262-word “manifesto.”

A 262-word manifesto?

By the ghosts of Marx and Engels! That’s what I call phoning it in.

Except our man didn’t use a phone to compose it. Or a laptop. It was handwritten. Whether on papyrus, stone tablets, or a shithouse wall was not made clear.

What is abundantly clear, however, is that 262 words do not a manifesto make. And let me tell you why.

Yes, yes, yes, it’s time for another political-science fiction episode of Radio Free Dogpatch.

• Technical notes: RFD is loving the Ethos mic from Earthworks Audio; Audio-Technica ATH-M50X headphones; Zoom H5 Handy Recorder; Apple’s GarageBand, and Auphonic for a sonic colonic. “The Internationale (Traditional)” and “The Internationale (Death Metal Edition)” both come from YouTube. The typewriter comes from Freesound. The police siren, screeching tires, ballpoint scribbling, and game-show buzzer all come from Zapsplat. All other evil racket is courtesy of Your Humble Narrator.

Help (still) wanted

~ Patrick O'Grady ~ 14 Comments
The next step in Bashar al-Assad’s career remains uncertain.

There is no truth to the rumor that Bashar al-Assad resigned as president of Syria to become CEO of UnitedHealthcare.

Please continue to hold. Your call is important to us. (Cue Paul McCartney’s “Wonderful Christmastime.”)

Chew on this

~ Patrick O'Grady ~ 12 Comments
“December? I don’t think so. Piss off.”

December is National Fruitcake Month, which should surprise exactly no one paying attention to the shenanigans in the nation’s capital.

But let’s not go there, hey? Whaddaya say? Tom Nichols at The Atlantic has posited that our latest Long National Nightmare will not be at an end for the better part of quite some time. It is a marathon, not a sprint, says Tom.

So let’s just jog gently along for a bit, as though we were trying to sweat out the whiskey from a long night of debauchery and hoping to forget (or perhaps remember) all the stupid shit we did while in our cups.

December always feels like an ending to me. Or perhaps the beginning of the end. Rarely am I in a celebratory state of mind.

For instance, this December I will enjoy not one, but two visits to the dentist. The first, yesterday, was for a routine cleaning; the other will be for replacement of a couple fillings that date back to my tenure as a union copy editor at The Pueblo Chieftain, 40 years ago.

“I don’t have the truck I was driving then, so I guess it’s time to get rid of these old fillings,” I quipped as the dentist Indiana Jones’d his way around the archaeology of my piehole.

“Mmm hmm,” he replied, no doubt thinking of his RV payment. “Keep up that home care.”

I was already the Mad Dog in 1984, but it would be seven years, a couple extended stretches of unemployment, and two more newspapers before I finally hopped the rickety fence of unsteady employment and went kyoodling after the bicycles, full speed ahead, damn the health insurance, sick leave, and dentistry.

Fortunate I am to have escaped the dental fate that befell Shane MacGowan. ’Tis a wonder that I have teefers to fill at all so.