August 23rd, 2009 by kruzman
A frantic businessman rushed into the emergency room, threw his attaché case on the reception desk, and exclaimed, “Nurse, I need help!”
The noise woke her up, and she said, “What?”
“This is an emergency!” he said.
“You’ll have to take your place in line,” she informed him.
“What line?” he replied, looking around. “The place is empty.”
“Oh,” she admitted, and held out her hand. “Can I have your insurance card?”
“Sure,” he said, “what’s that?”
“Proof that you have health insurance.”
“Oh, proof,” he said.
Just then a door flew open and a man was wheeled across the room on a table, accompanied by a doctor with a notepad.
“Relax,” the doctor told him. “It’s only a heart attack.”
“But I need help, now, or I could die,” the man informed him.
“Don’t be silly,” the doctor replied. “I already gave you aspirin. That increases survival rate by an average of 33.3%. Now, I have to ask you some questions. Up to four blood vessels in your heart may need replacement.”
“So?”
“Your insurance only covers two. I need your permission to do the others.”
“OK, OK!” the man consented.
“Good,” the doctor acknowledged. “Now, would you like anesthesia?”
“Of course,” the patient said.
“Excellent,” the surgeon went on. “Your policy is vague on that. Now, when I’m done with the bypass, would you like me to sew you back up?”
“What!?” the patient needed to know.
“Your insurance only covers the incision,” the doctor informed him.
At that point, the patient was wheeled off through the other door.
The businessman turned his attention back to the night nurse. “Nurse! I can’t wait all day. I have appointments to keep!”
“Maybe you should come back later,” she let him know.
“I would, if I could,” he told her. “But that’s my problem. I can’t remember what my appointments are.”
“Why not?”
“It’s terrible, just terrible,” he nearly cried. “I lost my memory!”
“Oh,” she noted, and handed him a form on a clipboard. “First, you have to fill this out.”
He looked it over, and said, “I’m in deep trouble.”
“Is there a problem?” the nurse asked.
“You want to know things like my name, my address, and my phone number! How can I tell you stuff like that when I lost my memory?”
“I’m sorry, sir. Everyone has to fill one of these out. If you can’t do it yourself, you’ll have to have a family member or friend do it for you.”
“But, nurse,” he explained, “if I could remember who my family and friends are, I’d still have my memory.”
“I’m sorry,” she insisted, “rules are rules.”
Just then a cute young wife hurried in, pulling her husband along. He seemed to be in pain and held a small paper bag.
“Excuse me,” she told the businessman, and addressed the nurse. “This is an emergency!”
“Oh,” the nurse said.
“We have to see a doctor right away,” the man added through his apparent agony.
“I’ll be with you in a minute,” the nurse responded.
“I don’t have a minute!” the man replied.
“We have to see a doctor now!” the wife told her.
“Everybody does,” the businessman observed, obviously getting into the swing of things. Then, as if to himself, he lamented, “Oh, I used to have such a great memory! I mean, I could never recite The Iliad or anything like that. But, as least, I could remember my name and address!”
“You don’t understand, nurse,” the wife pressed on. “There’s not a second to spare!”
“What’s seems to be the problem?” the nurse asked.
“We had an argument,” the man sighed, and nearly fainted.
“I love him,” the wife said. “You have to believe I love him. And I’m sorry. But–“
“– What?” asked the nurse.
The man pointed to the bag, and said, “She cut off my navel.”
“Your navel?” the nurse inquired, and turned to the wife. “Why that part?”
“She said, ‘I wish you were never born,’” the husband told her. “Then she whacked it off.”
“Oh, sweetheart, I’m sorry,” his wife said, consoling him with a pat or two.
“I need somebody to sew it back on before it’s too late,” the man said.
The nurse gave his wife a clipboard with a form on it. “Fill out this paper and have a seat.”
“We don’t have time for that!” she screeched.
“My navel is dying, dying with every passing moment!” the man wailed.
“And how would you like to be married to a man without a navel?” the wife begged to know.
“A doctor will be with you shortly,” the nurse replied.
“Come on, darling. I’ll fill it out,” the wife said, leading her husband by his free hand.
They took a seat, and, dutiful wife that she was, she began to fill in the information.
The businessman observed them with an increasingly crazed expression, and told himself, “I’ve got to remember something, anything, even if it’s just something general. Plato said something. I know he did. Ah, that’s it! ‘You become what you do.’ Hey, maybe I’m a classical scholar. No, no – I have too many appointments for that. Maybe I’m a philosophy major who went into business. Oh, I don’t know, I just don’t know!” he admitted, and turned to the nurse. “I have to see a doctor, now!”
“Is your form filled out?”
“Here,” he said, and handed it to her.
“It’s blank,” she informed him.
“That’s the point!” he shouted. “It’s blank, I’m blank! Get it! I lost my memory.”
“Don’t you have a wallet?”
“Why?”
“You must have some I. D. in it,” she explained.
“Hey, why didn’t I think of that?” he said, and took out his wallet.
At that moment, an intern who seemed not to have anything to do for a split second, entered the waiting area. “Who’s next?” he dared to ask the nurse.
The businessman held up his wallet and was about to speak, when the wife rushed up with her pained husband in tow, hand with clipboard extended.
“We are! We are, doctor!” she claimed.
“She cut off my navel,” the man told the doctor, in an effort to claim precedence.
“Your navel?” the doctor asked, and said, “That’s really serious.” Then he turned to the nurse, “But who’s next?”
The nurse pointed to the businessman. “But he hasn’t filled out his form yet.”
“That’s all right,” the doctor said, and turned to him. “You can finish it while we’re talking.”
Feeling a pang of fellow feeling, the businessman replied, “No, no, doctor – I can wait. I only lost my memory. On the other hand, he–“
“– lost my navel,” the husband interrupted.
“All right,” the doctor conceded, turning to the husband and wife. “Come with me.”
“Oh, thank you!” the wife told the businessman.
“Now, tell me,” the doctor asked the husband, as the couple followed him, “how did you lose your navel?”
“She cut it off,” the husband groaned.
“Family spat?” the doctor queried.
“You could say that,” the man answered.
“I said I’m sorry, didn’t I?” the wife retold him.
When they had disappeared behind the swinging door, the businessman began to fill out his form, referring to the cards he felt fortunate to find in his wallet. “Name, address,” he mumbled to himself. “It must be me because it’s my wallet. But what about my appointments? And my wife’s name, if I have a wife? I can’t go home without knowing that!”
As he toiled, another intern entered.
“Next,” the nurse said, pointing at the businessman.
“Oh, thank you,” he told her.
“What seems to be the problem?” the intern asked.
“I lost my memory.”
“Sorry about that,” the intern said. “How did it happen – a traumatic emotional event, a knock in the head, something you ate?”
“No, no, nothing like that,” the businessman said, taking his PDA out of his attaché case. “You see, I keep everything in my electronic organizer. At first, it was a convenience. Then, over time, I became dependent on it. My own memory withered from disuse. Finally, I couldn’t remember anything without it. Nothing. Zip. Then today, it happened.”
“What?” the doctor asked.
“The worst possible thing. The battery died.”
“Oh, my,” the doctor admitted. “That’s serious. I better take notes.”
He removed a PDA from his pocket and motioned for the businessman to follow him.
As they walked toward the swinging door, he asked, “Now, tell me, when did you first notice the problem?”
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July 31st, 2009 by kruzman
A trendy new nightclub that caters to baby boomers who find themselves unexpectedly single was raided by police last night. Acting on a tip from a twenty-something couple who entered the hotspot by accident, police were able to determine that many of the partying patrons were dropping antacid.
The owner, who was taken away in cuffs, claimed, “I had no idea some of the customers were dropping that stuff. But somehow they were smuggling it past the bouncers – Alka-Seltzer, Tums, Rolaids, you name it. Had I known, I would have slipped them some complimentary club soda.”
A female boomer noted, as she was being booked, “I admit it. I’ve become addicted to Alka-Seltzer How would you like to be in your fifties and be back out on the meat market? I just hope my children understand.”
A male patron, who was apprehended while attempting to escape as fast as he could amble down the street, lamented, “I’m single, I’m upset, so no wonder I need regular doses of Mylanta. And there’s nothing I won’t do to get it – rob, murder, even pick up a bottle at the drugstore.”
To the relief of the distraught boomers, who have a seemingly irrepressible urge to enjoy life even into their later decades, the club is scheduled to reopen tonight.
However, upon arrival the trendy crowd will notice that a new sign has been placed above the entrance, notifying them that “The Possession Of Antacid On These Premises Is Strictly Forbidden.”
I propose the 5 p.m. to 9 p.m. club. This is the time frame that middle-aged people have to enjoy their time with others before they crash and need to nap. Why not place napping stations in the club to allow us to catch a power nap and continue partying until 9.
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July 11th, 2009 by kruzman
A newborn infant, who showed unusual promise in the hospital nursery in the modulation of her of coos and cries and was immediately swept from her mother’s arms to Harvard University, has now been disgraced as a mere plagiarist.
It seems that the infant, commissioned to write an original succession of coos and cries by a wily book packager, had listened, intentionally or not, to the coos and cries of her fellow newborns during her brief stay at the hospital.
Hapless child that she was, she could hardly do more than imitate their enchanting litany.
Now all has been uncovered and the infant is widely disgrace and currently inflicting unnecessary mortification on herself.
Along with the author’s disgrace with fortune and adult’s eyes, the once storied publishing company of Little Baby & Company, which optioned, not only one but two books of coos and cries from the infant, now has pabulum on its face.
To recuperate as much as possible from the catastrophic descent of its reputation, it has cancelled its contract with the babe, not only for a revised version of its present rendition of infant sounds, but for the second collection, for which, in its eagerness to make money even at the cost of its intellectual dignity, paid the newborn the sum of $700,000 for the expected twin bestsellers.
As usual, the rains of time will wash away the pabulum and the child, we hope, having one day realized the immensity of her transgression, will have the wisdom to attribute it to her preconscious state of relative unconsciousness and will go on to achieve whatever she may in the yet unknown possibilities of her post coos-and-cries intellectual development.
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June 27th, 2009 by kruzman
The 30-year run of Johnny Carson as host of The Tonight Show was both memorable and historic. It was the setting for a number of classic TV moments remembered by television watchers of several generations. Though many people remember Carson for his hilarious characters and skits, he was not one to shy away from controversial topics when it was something that he truly believed in. Many of his best-known moments have been captured on various classic TV DVD’s, enabling fans of Carson to watch their favorite bits over and over again.
One of Johnny Carson’s best known moments, one that demonstrated to the world just how quick his wit really was, happened two years after he began his run on The Tonight Show. On April 29, 1965, Ed Ames of the Daniel Boone television series was Carson’s guest. Ames was demonstrating how to throw a tomahawk using a wooden silhouette of a man, and when he threw the tomahawk it landed squarely in the silhouette’s crotch. As the crowd laughed, Carson quipped, “I didn’t even know you were Jewish.” This piece of classic television comedy was so popular that it was often replayed on the show’s anniversary.
Other classic moments on The Tonight Show revolved around some of the recurring characters that Johnny Carson portrayed, often with the help of Ed McMahon. Quite possibly the most famous of these classic television characters was Carnac the Magnificent, a mentalist played by Carson who would claim to be able to answer questions sealed in envelopes without ever seeing the question. The answers, of course, would never be straight answers and would instead be puns. When the audience didn’t like one of the jokes, he would respond with equally outlandish curses, such as “May a diseased yak befriend your sister.” Carson had a number of other popular characters as well, such as Floyd R. Turbo, Ralph Willie, and Aunt Blabby.
Not all of the comedy sketches that Carson did contained these repeating characters. There were a number of one-shot skits which appeared on the classic television show, including Carson’s portrayal of Hamlet delivering the famous “To be or not to be…” soliloquy. In the Johnny Carson version, however, were a number of product advertisements which flowed directly from the famous Shakespearean lines to create one of the funniest portrayals of the play to date.
In addition to providing laughs and unexpected punchlines, Carson would from time to time use his show as a means of exposing scams and fakes who were taking advantage of the public at large. Famed psychic Uri Gellar appeared on the show in 1973. Carson himself set up the props for Gellar’s act without Gellar or his manager being able to see them before filming. Despite Gellar’s claims of having genuine mental powers, he was unable to reproduce his usual tricks with the props that Carson provided. This method of proving Gellar a fraud had been suggested by Carson’s friend James Randi, a trained stage magician (like Carson himself) who later appeared on the show in 1987 to expose the supposed faith healer Peter Popoff. Though Popoff claimed that his knowledge of the audience’s problems came from “Godly visions”, Randi provided Carson and his audience with video that showed Popoff’s wife describing the people for him to heal via a microphone which broadcast to a speaker hidden in his hearing aid.
Other classic TV moments on The Tonight Show included visits from zoologists such as Joan Embery and Jim Fowler. They brought animals which Carson would often interact with in some way; many episodes featured Carson being crawled on by smaller animals. One famous incident often shown as a clip featured Carson leaning down too close to a panther’s cage which caused the cat to swipe at him with its paw. Carson ran across the stage and jumped into Ed McMahon’s arms for comedic effect.
When Johnny Carson retired from the show, his final episodes were considered major events. The most sentimental moment came on the next-to-last of his episodes. Bette Midler and Robin Williams were his guests. After Carson revealed in conversation some of his favorite songs, Midler began to sing one. The song soon became a duet between her and Carson. She finished her appearance by singing “One for My Baby (and One More for the Road).” An emotional Carson began to tear up on camera. This historic and touching moment was caught on film using a long camera angle never used in the previous 30 years of Carson’s run. One of his most emotional classic moments became a historic milestone in late night television filming.
Carson was an amazing entertainer, a charismatic personality and a moment maker. His appeal as a celebrity and a comedian carries on to future generations as classic television shows become available on DVD.
~Ben Anton, 2008
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