Thursday, November 20, 2008

A Certain Kind of Man

Yesterday, my ER treated a man who was cutting a tree down when a limb fell on him. He was a typical good 'ol boy, big and beefy and dressed in hunting camoflauge. His family was gathered around his bed.

His face was swollen and he had two black eyes. Jokingly, I said, "Looks like you fought a tree, and the tree won", which is a reference to a song that most of us know.

Apparently I insulted his redneck manhood, because he fired back, "I won. That tree is dead and I'm still alive!"

His male family members chipped in to defend him. "Yeah, that tree is dead. And it's in little pieces. It's not going to do anything to him anymore".

I could not believe these people. We were talking about a tree! And they were boasting about besting it!

Good thing I didn't bring up the occupations.

4 comments:

Flimsy Sanity said...

Sounds like it took quite a few of them to bring that mean ole tree down.

wagelaborer said...
This comment has been removed by the author.
wagelaborer said...

Nah, some people just bring everyone they know to the ER. It's kind of funny.
One woman had pelvic pain and invited everyone, including her ex-husband, to the ER. She thought she had cancer and wanted support when she found out the diagnosis.
It turned out to be a forgotten, 2 week old tampon. So then everyone she knew was there for that diagnosis!

Flimsy Sanity said...

I shouldn't laugh because every time I have a pain, I think it is cancer too.

My mom always used to say "If it doesn't go away in a month, we will take you in." Seems to work for most things.