All Creatures Great And Creepy

You would think that anthropomorphic animals would be a cute way to ease the anxiety at a veterinarian’s office. You’d think that. And perhaps well executed, such an idea might work. But this? Major fail.

This is the illustration found on a box of veterinary surgical drape. See? The doggie’s a doctor and he’s operating on the cat. Funny, right? WRONG! This is creepy as all get out. That canine sure looks menacing – hell, I have my doubts he even went to medical school. And is he a medical practitioner or is something much more sinister going on? I dunno why but I just get the impression Doctor Feelgoodboy here might be on the brink of creating his own feline centipede or worse.

Whatever the bloody hell is going on here I can guarantee you it’s not sanctioned by the ASPCA.

Med Men

When I was in my early 20s I went to a doctor who wasn’t a pediatrician for the first time. During the physical, he gave me the full once over and asked me the type of questions I’d never been on the receiving end of before. At one point he asked if I was “regular” but I didn’t know what that meant. I’d heard the term before but not in context. I thought he was asking me if I was gay or straight. This kind of bothered me since I felt that was crossing a line and not particularly relevant to my health. Still, I told him reluctantly that I thought I was “regular enough.” He then followed with, “How often would you say?” I was, of course, really thrown by this one but returned with a tentative, “Maybe once every few months, if I’m lucky.” The doctor looked at me, shocked, and then wrote me a prescription for the biggest industrial-strength laxative I’d wager any human ever ingested. It basically turned my digestive tract into a sluice. I lost nearly 20 pounds before we realized what the miscommunication had been.

Learned my lesson though: always lie to your physician.