Friday Funnies Vol II

I don’t want to break my Friday blogging streak after only one successful post so I have decided to write a little something before it’s too late. Better late, than never, eh? So here are funny stories I picked up over the last couple of days in Sacramento, an airplane, and the Chicago airport. So exotic! Just a disclaimer: I'm tired and stressed so these stories may just be funny to me and those who were there, but oh well, can't win them all. Furthermore, these stories are a tad long together so maybe split reading the post up throughout the day (this would have been perfect for all of Michael's bathroom trips today, sorry bro).

Funny 1 – Sacramento. Over the last couple of months by father has been pretty depressed (this isn’t the funny part). He is obsessed with golf. It is going to be his passion when he retires. Unfortunately, he has not been able to practice or play recently because he has developed a Morton’s neuroma on his sole. Basically it’s a benign mass in the nerve of his foot that sends a shooting pain up his body whenever he puts pressure on it. Poor guy. I’ve been looking up remedies to help him with this problem but he’s had an excuse for avoiding each one. Surgery will make him miss a month of work. An alcohol injection can damage more nerves and might not kill the neuroma. While orthotics relieve pressure from the neuroma, they are too expensive. I guess all are good excuses, except for my dad’s frugal take on orthotics. For making so much money it seemed like he was being a cheap-skate. I had no idea.

While laughing about my airport debacle the following weekend around the dinner table my mom said it was almost as stupid as how my dad got his neuroma. What?! I guess I had never asked my dad how he got it. I just assumed it grew spontaneously like a usual tumor. Well, my mom explained, my dad was pretty sure he got it practicing golf. No pain, no gain, right? I didn’t see what was so funny or stupid about that. Well it’s a little more specific than that. It seems like my dad didn’t want to ruin his $10 golf shoes in the mud so he practiced in my sister’s soccer cleats. The only thing is that they are a size too small for him and the pressure he put on his scrunched toes led to the neuroma. He didn’t want to buy another pair of $10 spikes to practice in and instead he is going to have surgery that will cost more than a $1000. Something doesn’t ad up…  Knock on wood that the surgery will work.

 

Funny 2 – Airplane. I have been told that I am loud. And sometimes when I am having a private conversation I have been told that my secrets have been audible to everyone around me. Well the same could be said about the women and her mother sitting behind me on my plane from Chicago to Long Island. The only difference is that their secrets weren’t about what they just did on vacation or what they are planning to do in Long Island. Instead, it was about diarrhea. I was trying to sleep so I don’t know how the conversation started, but I perked up when the daughter yelled at her mother, “don’t drink that, there’s milk in there!” The mother laughed and said “oh, that was a close one. I haven’t taken my lactaid yet. Last time that happened I had the worse diarrhea and stomach gas. Thanks.” I tried to stifle my laughter but a snicker escaped. I wasn’t really laughing at the conversation because I’m going to be a doctor and will talk about poop all the time. I was laughing because I could see my sister and mom having the exact conversation and keeping everyone around them abreast of their GI problems.

Funny 3 – Sacramento, Chicago Airport, Long Island. It was my parents’ anniversary on April 19 so I wanted to do something nice for them. There’s no reason for me to buy them anything since I don’t know what they like, and we were going out to dinner so there was no opportunity to cook. So I turned to other methods of labor and thought I should trim the hedges. Now this may sound lame, but my dad always laments how I am never there and the “Three Amigos” (yes he named our hedges) are getting too big. Also, I kept hitting the hedges along our driveway whenever I pulled my sister’s car in or out of the garage. With the decision made, I pulled out the extension cord and hedge trimmer and went to work. The first two bushes along the driveway were pretty easy getting shorn down to size. I then turned to the Three Amigos that line the front of our house. As soon as I moved the equipment to the new bushes my dad comes home. Surprise ruined, but I still needed to cut them. Once the first one was done my mom came out to tell me that “our reservations are soon.” I brush her off and continue to sculpt. Halfway through the second one I realize the extension cord that I have draped over my shoulders is slipping so I try to readjust. Sczzzht. Huh? Why did the trimmer stop? It seems that while I was tending to the extension cord on my shoulder, the slack in my hand dropped in front of the trimmer, which cut right through it. Damnit. Ok. I can tell my dad about that after I finish with another extension cord. I switch the extension cords and set up to continue. I pressed the bottom to start and… nothing. Damnit x2. I must have shorted the trimmer. Whelp, I can only apologize to dad.

I go into the house and tell my dad that I cut through an extension cord and burned out the trimmer. Instead of an anniversary present I basically made him spend another $75 to fix my mess. What happened next shocked me. He didn’t really care. He would usually try to make my feel bad with a “fine, I guess I’ll go buy a new trimmer” or the classic “it’s ok, I’ll just work until I’m 80.” None of these. Weird. Ok. I guess I’ll retrim the hedges when I come back in November.

But the story continues. This is what I saw when I got off the plane in Chicago four days later: “Call home when you can for a funny story about Daddy.” I call and my dad gets on the phone. “So I bought the new hedge trimmer and started finishing up your mess and guess what… I cut the extension cord.” I think I scared the people in line at the airport McDonalds with my laughing. In fact, he has a history of cutting through cords with the trimmer. Now it makes sense why he didn’t rib me. At least he knew how to reset the old trimmer that I thought I had destroyed. Unfortunately, he had no cure for any of the cords. For those of you playing at home, that means the Inouye house is left with two working hedge trimmers, zero extension cords, and one and a half amigos that still need to be trimmed. Hopefully they can wait until November.

Friday Funnies Vol I

So Brian’s Sloth of Bears didn’t work out as a weekly Friday installment. This could have been due to a lack of support on generating topics, the fact that the only response (Mike’s music selection) was met by heavy criticism by yours truly, or probably because I was terrible at keeping up with writing on here. Anyway, I have decided to change the Friday theme to something I can hopefully always write about. Something positive and relevant. Fridays will now be: Friday Funnies.

The premise of this post will be a deviation from the norm. It will be positive, funny, and unlike my other posts, center on a random funny event in my life. It will be the one time I will make sure I do not insert any of my critical thoughts about school or life.

Thankfully, I have a funny story to share with all of you to start this adventure in Friday Funnies.

Over the last couple of days I was lamenting over going home for Spring Break. Yes it’s warmer in California and it would be nice to see my family, but none of my Sacramento friends would be home, and I would miss my girlfriend and friends on the East Coast. Without the distractions of friends I had planned to start seriously studying for Boards once I deplaned, and this too made me apprehensive. Regardless, I sucked it up and started packing this morning after I sent the pharm project to Michael to turn in. Half of my suitcase was full of books and the other with clothes. I called Joanna to make sure she could still take me to the airport. She said she was going to come over after class at around 315. It was 245 so I had plenty of time to drive 5min to the family medicine clinic to say bye to Carly. Now what happened in the 2min span in that family medicine parking lot is the crux of this story.

As I pulled in to the lot I started freaking out because I realized that I hadn’t checked in for my flight. Thinking about being wedged between two large individuals and not being able to do work or nap, I pulled out my trusty smart phone and punched away at the screen as quickly as possible to get the possible best boarding number possible (I’m flying Southwest, hopefully sans hole in the cockpit). As I am hitting the screen, my iPhone keeps asking if I want to join the “Stone Soupe” wireless network. It requires a password so I click cancel. I type a couple of more characters and again the query appears. I am literally two blocks away now, how can my phone still get the wireless signal? I don’t even get a wireless signal one room over in my Sacramento house! After a couple rounds of this game I finally fill out the information and send it on the information superhighway to Southwest.com. And then… ERROR. What? “Either it is more than 24hr before your flight or less than 1hr before your flight.” Crap. Did I get the time wrong? Is my flight boarding now? I backed up the screen and retyped the information all the while playing the “do you want to join Stone Soupe wireless network” game again. I could just hear the sitcom audience laughing at my efforts. Finally all the info was in, I made sure my name was spelled correctly, and boom, sent again. ERROR. WTF?! Now my heart was racing, maybe I’m missing my flight. What was going on? I went back to check my confirmation number on the ticket again. Yes it was correct. Then I checked the departure time- 510, not 3pm so my plane hadn’t taken off yet. And as soon as I made that connection my eyes looked at the next phrase Apr 17. Hold on. What is today’s date? I went to the home screen on my phone. Starring me in the face was Apr 15.

Crud.

Why had I thought that I was flying home today? Maybe it was my parents wishing me a safe flight last night. I called my dad. “No, we’re expecting you on Sunday at 11pm.” Drat. Can’t pawn the blame off on them. Without any explanation but my ineptitude, the only thing I could do was laugh. Laugh at my stupidity. Chuckle that my dad now has the ammo he needs to always tease me at the dinner table. Snicker that I will never be able to live this down.

I quickly updated my Sacramento friends (many who read this blog) who were trying to make weekend plans with me that I will be unable to join them. They all asked the same question, “flight canceled?” I laughed again. I have such nice friends, giving me the benefit of the doubt. “Nope” I reply, “I just can’t read my ticket.”

“Hahaha classic.”  “Dumbass.”  “Lame.”  “Bahahaha.”  “Aww muffin.”

And so here I am. Alone on my couch in the living room. Confused as to what the heck I am supposed to do with the rest of the weekend and why I was so convinced I was flying out today. But you know what? I may never know why I thought what I did. It was a mistake, although uncommon in nature. The only thing I can do is take my hits, laugh it off, and get on with my life.

Live. Love. Laugh.

Get off the road!!

The world works in a funny way. This weekend I was thinking about how I haven’t update this blog in a long time. I planned to write something after my tests today, but I had no material that I wanted to passionately discuss.  That is, until my car was rear-ended as I was leaving the Stony Brook undergrad campus earlier today.  As I sat there behind a stopped car in the merge lane onto Nichols a van flew around the corner and while he tried to get out of the way, he failed. Bada bing, bada BOOM. In case you were wondering, I think I am physically and emotionally fine and my car proved to be the tank my dad said it was. Win. Kinda. Anyway, as long as the adrenaline is flowing through my system and I haven’t yet experienced any physical pain, I want to hammer out the topic that has long been brewing: LONG ISLAND DRIVERS ARE TERRIBLE.

And when I say terrible I don’t mean that they “bad” drivers. They speed, tailgate and even once jack-knifed between me and a seemingly parallel car, but I wouldn’t say their driving skills are that much worse than anywhere else in the country. 

What makes them worse than any other driver is that they are rude. Maybe it’s the sense of entitlement that one sees with stereotypical Long Islanders (thankfully my peers break this mold), but every driver on the road thinks his or her time is the most important. With this mentality, drivers will enter intersections five seconds after the light turns red to congest it and not allow perpendicular traffic to cross. They will clog up the road, bumper to bumper, so that cars coming in the opposite direction trying to turn into driveway will be blocked from doing so. They go in the shoulder to pass cars. They tailgate you to switch lanes if you aren’t going 20 miles per hour over the speed limit. And they speed around corners without regard. 

It is surprising that this is my first accident since the above actions can be witnessed any time you drive on Long Island. It is hilarious when I see a car run through a stop light and then is stopped at the very next one. The risk of an accident really paid off, huh? As I pull up alongside them they’re of course on the phone, gesturing like a New Yorker, yelling at whoever is on the other end of the conversation probably about their “hard life” or “how important they are” (these are guesses).  My roommate Michael Kinnaman, notorious aggressive driver, explains that he hates people who drive poorly around him, so he does it to avoid the problem. I guess this reasoning makes sense, but it also perpetuates the problem. At least it’s a view into the mind of a bad driver.

So I guess with my adrenaline wearing off and soreness setting in, I must bid you adieu and rummage through my medicine cabinet for Motrin. Thank goodness for Motrin. Thank goodness for seatbelts. Thank goodness for my dad buying me a tank. I think I’m going to take my car in to see if the frame is all good so I can get back on the road.

See you there.