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Nate Silver and My Wife Are Always Right [California Seething]

It’s hard to believe that it’s already been a month since Obama’s re-election. With the bitterness and divisiveness of the election, the past month was a time for coming together in America. After all, Obama is happily ensconced in the White House for four more years and America’s glorious future as a gay, Muslim, socialist welfare state is at long last safe and secure. Phew!

That’s right, Fox & Fuckers- all of your batshit, paranoid, Karl Rove, Donald Trump, 2016: Obama’s America, Birth of a Nation fantasies are comin’ true! Can he forcibly convert all the Mega-Churches to Mega-Mosques? YES HE CAN! Can he nationalize all the NASCAR tracks to use for Moonie style mass gay weddings? YES HE CAN! Can he change his name to Oba-MAO Bin Ladin? YES HE CAN! Can he nationalize Wal-Mart so he can use all the stores for his new line of low cost women’s health clinics- Bargain Barry’s ‘Bortions n’ Birth Control? YES HE CAN! Bring in your Kenyan birth certificate and your first service is free- who cares how expensive it is? Big government’s buying! Muahahahahahahahaha!!!! Muahahahahahahahahahahahahahaha!!!!!!!!

Wait, what was I talking about again. Oh right, coming together. Uhm, yeah. Nice effort, guys. Good game. Way to almost steal the country using voter suppression and fraud. I’m sooooo sorry that your evil misbegotten homophobic, misogynistic, elitist, ignorant, fanatical racist effort to put the White back in the White House fell apart horribly when you found out that contrary to popular belief and 236 years of empirical evidence, you can go broke underestimating the intelligence of the American people- or at least lose an election.

Who knew?

(Nate Silver, bitchez! Nate Silver- statistical love machine. Nate Silver- recently voted America’s Sexiest Math Nerd by Seriously, that’s a Thing? Magazine. Nate Silver- who’s pick up line: “Georgia went Red/ Ohio went Blue/ I called the election/ Now how ‘bout I call you?” is projected to get him digits 50.8% of the time- guaranteeing him an landmark victory with Electoral College sorority girls.)

Right, so like I was saying, November was a time for coming together. For setting aside rancor and rhetoric and working through our ideological differences in order to find real solutions to the problems we face.  For slowly unblocking Republican friends on Facebook and learning once more to Like the endless pictures of their kids at the plastic church playground and to snicker gently and without malice at the weird shit they post about God. For growing moustaches to raise awareness of our awareness of prostate cancer awareness month (suck it, breast cancer awareness month). It’s a time to celebrate our shared heritage, to show gratitude for those that have served, and move forward as one united nation. But, since national unity is fuckin’ boring, I’m going to whine about my trip to the Emergency Room right before Thanksgiving.

I’m not the only one, btw, who thinks national unity is boring. In every state in the union Racists, Half-Wits, Zealots and Nutbags have banded together to submit internet petitions requesting secession from the Union. The petition in Texas has gathered the most signatures, which is not surprising, since Texas’ main exports are Oil, Racists, Half-Wits, Zealots, Nutbags, underachieving football teams, Matthew McConaughey, those stupid fucking hats that only look good on LBJ and Larry Hagman (who are both dead), and cows.

And, yes, in case you’re wondering, I did sign the petition for secession and I urge you all to do the same. If I’ve learned nothing else from the movie Lincoln it’s that no one is better than Daniel Day Lewis at overacting with period facial hair. You should see him in the new ZZ-Top movie. Amaze-balls.

But if I learned one more thing from the movie Lincoln, it’s that we threw away one perfectly good chance to get all the Racists, Half-Wits, Zealots and Nutbags out of the Union 150 years ago- so let’s not blow it again. Seriously, Texas threatening to secede? That’s like Cousin Oliver threatening to secede from the Brady Bunch, Jar Jar Binks threatening to secede from the Star Wars franchise, Mark Sanchez threatening to secede from the Jets (not Fireman Ed, though – he’s one guy in a Sanchez jersey I’m actually gonna miss. At least he never butt-fumbled the J-E-T-S chant. Butt fumble. Good lord. My grandfather’s booing from heaven.)

Just imagine; an America without Rick Perry, an America without Jerry Jones, an America where textbook printers aren’t held hostage by whatever crazy ass shit Texas Board of Ignorance decides is appropriate to teach, and best of all- an America where we could never have another Bush as President because they were all born in Texas- and, guess what, that state’s not part of the US anymore! (that’s how it’s done, Donald. Boom!) I don’t know about you, but I can’t forget the fucking Alamo fast enough.

I mean, sorry Austin hipsters- maybe we’ll amend the DREAM Act so that you can immigrate to Portland. Hell, why not? With Texas gone- we can pass all sorts of crazy pants laws! Yee-Haw! Moonie style mass-gay weddings, here we come!

Right. What the hell was I talking about? Oh yeah, my trip to the ER. OK. So, here are a few things you should know about my marriage:

  1. My wife is much smarter than I am.
  2. She’s always right.
  3. Despite the fact that this has been proven over and over and over again, I don’t listen when she says things like: “You probably shouldn’t use that unbelievably sharp serrated tomato knife to cut those brownies because you’ll cut your finger open”

So there I was, sitting in the emergency room with my finger cut open, the gaping knife wound like an open mouth saying “I told you so” over and over again which is better than “Redrum” but just barely.

Now, going to the Emergency Room is bad enough. In fact, it’s one of the worst ways you can spend an evening, right up there with being shot in the face outside a doughnut shop and watching a Thanksgiving night Jets game. It’s even worse when you’ve done something apocalyptically stupid like, oh, I don’t know, cutting your finger open with a super-sharp serrated tomato knife while cutting brownies.

Because, in the ER, you have to explain what you’ve done to hurt yourself approximately 10,000 times- so that every single hospital employee can be disappointed in what a moron you are. Seriously, first there’s the receptionist who greets you with all the love and compassion that a person can muster when they are sitting behind six layers of bullet proof glass and secretly want you dead.

Then, there’s the triage nurse who decides if you’re drunk, stoned, tweaking, tripping, homeless, crazy, seriously injured and in need of immediate care (Code Red), poor and just in need of routine medical attention (Code Meh),  or just some stupid fucking moron who cut his finger open with a super sharp serrated knife while cutting brownies (Code Seriously Dude, WTF???).

Then there’s the orderly in the baby-blue scrubs with the tribal tattoo and spike in his ear who cleans out your wound and lives from one gnarly ER story to the next (“Dude, that looks nasty, what’d you do?”, “Cut my finger open with a super-sharp serrated tomato knife while cutting brownies”, “Oh.”); the frizzy haired spunky young nurse with the chunky plastic glasses and Pepto-Bismol pink scrubs who gives you the Tetanus shot and still thinks she has to act like she gives a crap about humanity (“Oh my god, you poor thing, what did you do to yourself?” “Cut my finger open with a super-sharp serrated tomato knife while cutting brownies”, “Oh”);  the scrawny exhausted older nurse working her fifth consecutive triple shift, because of her fifth consecutive deadbeat ex-husband, with washed out stringy blond hair, washed out pale blue eyes and washed out puke green scrubs who stiches up your wound after giving the most painful Lidocaine shot she can possibly give in hopes that you’ll remember that the next time you’re about to do something stupid and will never darken the doors of her emergency room again (“So, what’d you do this time?”, “Cut my finger open with a super-sharp serrated tomato knife while cutting brownies”, “Figures”), the orderly in the black scrubs who rolls the X-Ray machine from the hallway into the examining room for no particular reason and barely speaks English (“Hey. Mister. What you do?”, “Cut my finger open with a super-sharp serrated tomato knife while cutting brownies”, “Oh”) and the mentally sluggish cross-eyed orderly in bright yellow polka dot scrubs that he may have brought from home who rolls the X-Ray machine from the examining room back out to the hallway for no particular reason (“Whatja do buddy?”, “Cut my finger open with a super-sharp serrated tomato knife while cutting brownies”, “Oh. You want a blanket?” “I’m good” “Want an X-Ray?”, “I’m good” “I like brownies” “Me too”).

You tell the story so many times that it begins to feel like a police interrogation, like if they keep asking the question over and over and over again, you’re just going to crack and tell the truth:

What did you do?

Cut my finger….

What did you do?

Cut my finger…

What did you do?

Cut my finger…

What did you do?

FINE. I KILLED THEM. I KILLED ALL OF THEM. I CHOPPED THEM UP WITH AN AXE, COOKED THEIR FLESH FOR DINNER AND FED THEM TO THEIR UNSUSPECTING LOVED ONES AS A DELICIOUS STEW HAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHA!!!!!! Then, while I was serving cappuccino and dessert, I cut my finger open with a super-sharp serrated tomato knife while cutting brownies. Nobody got cappuccino.

Open Gaping Finger Wound: I told you so. I told you so. I told you so. I told you so.

So, sure, it’s annoying to keep having to admit what a complete moron you are to total strangers over and over and over again- but you do it because you know that the second you enter the ER, you give up two things- Control Over Your Destiny and Personal Privacy.

I mean, I’m not sure why you’d still even have illusions of personal privacy in this day and age. After all, privacy is one of those quaint old fashioned notions like “decency”, “courtesy” and “scientific truth”.

Still, some people are fussy about their privacy- they get all huffy when Facebook changes its privacy settings and post long stupid declarations in their status updates to protect their precious data from Facebook’s nefarious uses. Of course, these are also the same people who post all about their trip to the gynecologist and their beagle’s heartbreaking battle with colitis, so they have a curious definition of the word “PRIVATE”, but that’s beside the point.

The thing is, we live in a world where David Fucking Petraeus (actually it’s not “Fucking”, it’s “Howell”. I checked. Tee-Hee. “Howell”. What a dork.) couldn’t even protect his privacy – and he had the whole goddamn CIA at his disposal- do you seriously think you can keep Facebook from doing whatever the hell they want with the data that YOU FUCKING GAVE THEM VOLUNTARILY by cutting and pasting some legal sounding nonsense into a status update (the Berner Convention? The Rome Statute? Yeah, Mark Zuckerberg’s quaking in his douchebag sandals.)

The only thing that will change if you post your little declaration is that “Copyright Infringement” will start showing up in your Sponsored Links. Hey, I’ve got an idea- if you don’t like the way Facebook is treating you- why don’t you ask for your money back? Right.

Guess what entitled little brats of the 2.0 world? Ain’t nothing free in this world. You know those warm fuzzy feelings you get when somebody agrees with your stance on gay marriage or likes that oh-so-clever eCard you made using Willy Wonka’s face (which actually is copyrighted, btw) – well you paid for those feelings with your personal data and there’s not a damn thing you can do about it.

There’s nothing in the Constitution that guarantees Free and Private Social Networking for Everybody. Hell, it’s not even part of Obamacare. So suck it up, ignore the ads, and let me know when Snoopy’s diarrhea stops. Try feeding him pumpkin.  Oh, and, by the way, posting the declaration and then posting something snarky that makes fun of the declaration when everyone says how stupid it is kind of makes you look like a great big lame-ass. But not as lame as having the middle name “Howell.” Tee-Hee. What a dork.

Right. So, what was I talking about again? Oh yeah, Privacy. Fuck that. It’s gone. Deal. Control over your Destiny, though- that’s a tougher one to give up.

After all, the biggest problem of our age is that we have too MUCH choice and control- not too little. Actually, the biggest problem of our age is that we’re totally ignoring the man-made ecological disaster that’s about to wipe out all human life on this planet but LA LA LA LA LA LA LA I CAN’T HEAR YOU I CAN’T HEAR YOU FISCAL CLIFF! FISCAL CLIFF! JOBS AND THE ECONOMY! PETREAUS AND BENGHAZI! SUSAN RICE! LA LA LA LA LA LA LA LA LA LA I CAN’T HEAR YOU GLUG GLUG GLUG GLUG GLUG.

Anyhow, whether you like it or not, if you want to get treated in the ER, you’ve got to surrender Control. There’s no Emergency Room Prime membership you can buy, no Priority Boarding line for treatment- they’ll see you when they damn well want to see you and the only thing you can do about it is to be more injured. The crazy shirtless drunk whose strapped to his bed and covered in vomit- yeah, they’ll get to you just as soon as they’re done with that fine gentleman. He’s got priority.

It’s even more difficult to surrender control in the ER, because nobody tells you what the hell is going on and you have absolutely no idea what the plan is, what’s coming next, what who’s doing what or when the hell you’ll get out of there. It’s a healthcare system only Kafka could love. The only two options you have are:

  1. Understand that, despite the appearance of total chaos and disarray, the ER is actually a well oiled machine run by highly trained dedicated professionals who are working as efficiently as possible to provide a high level of care to a large number of patients with extremely limited resources- so suck it up and wait for your stitches.
  2. Understand that it’s total fucking chaos, nobody knows what’s going on, they’ve probably completely forgotten about you and you’re going to die of gangrene when all you fucking wanted was a goddamn Pillsbury sugar-free brownie and you were too lazy to wash off a better knife so you used the super sharp serrated tomato knife even though your wife told you not to and the last words you uttered before you made your fatal mistake were “It’s fine, it’s FINE. It’s FINE.” Then suck it up and wait for your death. Or stiches. But probably death.

Actually, I was treated pretty quickly. You wouldn’t believe how much faster you get treated in the ER when you’re gushing blood. I was in and out in two hours- which is the fastest that anyone has ever gotten out of the ER who wasn’t taken down to the morgue. Seriously, you should make sure always have a gushing open wound whenever you go to the ER. Even if you’re just there for an ear infection or stomach bug, do yourself a favor and slice open your hand with a knife right before you go in. Just, you know, come up with a better story than “cutting brownies with a tomato knife” cause you’re going to have to repeat it A LOT and you don’t want to sound like some big dork named “Howell”. Tee-Hee. “Howell” What a dork.)

Anyhow, clearly I survived. I got a couple of stitches, a Tetanus shot, an impressive looking tube bandage for my finger (which was very useful when I wanted to say “We’re Number ONE!” or “I just asked you to do ONE thing!” or “Come on, I can’t be the ONE person who’s ever cut his finger open serving brownies”) and was sent on my way.

The next week, I saw my Ghetto Ass HMO Primary Care Physician (part of the Bay Area Ghetto Ass Medical Group) who took off the bandage, looked at my finger, told me it was fine, put the same bandage I got in the hospital back on my finger and hit me up for theatre tickets.

He might be a terrible doctor. One time I came in after I banged my shin really badly and I was worried (OK, my wife was worried, I said it was fine) that I had broken the bone. He took one look, said it was fine, and then raised his pant leg to show me a bruise just like mine- where he banged his own shin. “See” he said “Nothing to worry about!” before putting his pants back down, smiling condescendingly and limping, stiff legged, out of the room. I think he gets a bonus for every referral he doesn’t make.

Still, everything worked out for the best. The wound healed, the stiches came out, and aside from a teensy-weensy scar on the tippie-tip-top of my finger and the fact that I don’t have any feeling in my hand, everything’s fine! (Kidding! I just don’t have feeling in the tip of my finger. My doctor says it’s fine. He doesn’t have any feeling in his finger either!)

So there you have it. I’m not really sure what the point of the story is. I’d like to say that I learned a valuable lesson about the importance of being more careful when I do stuff but that’s a fucking lie. That story about almost breaking my shin- yeah that was a week ago. Maybe the point is that everyone should have Health Insurance so they don’t have to go to the ER for routine medical care, so I hope Obamacare won’t be driven off the Fiscal Cliff.  Maybe the point is that, no matter how divided we feel, we are all just flesh and bone, subject to the same human frailties and weaknesses- and perhaps the time has come to stitch together the nation, like the tip of my finger, before we lose feeling completely.

OK, that’s not the point either. The point is that my wife is smarter than I am and I should always listen to her. Also, global warming is real. I mean, that’s not strictly pertinent to this story, but it’s something I like to say. Also, the Jets actually won this week – and they did it without Sanchez or Tebow – so there might be a small sliver of hope for them this year (SPOILER ALERT: There isn’t). Also, is my shin supposed to be purple and swollen like Ray Lewis? Crap. I really need to get a new doctor. I wonder if the UCLA Ghetto Ass Medical Group is any better. I sure as hell don’t want to go back to the Emergency Room. I’d have to cut open my other finger, just to get out of there quicker.