The Absolute Best Twisted Book I’ve Ever Read

Various and sundry things take me away from blogging, like collecting 294 Flair on Facebook.  Now that’s dedication!

I’m into philosophical sh*t, too, & humanitarian aid (for chocolate rabbits).

Also included in my busy days are book sales.  I hoard books & place them in piles around the house, a kind of eccentric decor that’s welcoming to those who like dust & eau de musty.  Occasionally I rearrange just for fun, taking extra care not to confuse mine with the library books, of which I rented 21 just yesterday.

I sit and peruse books while watching the big screen TV, with my laptop — where else — in my lap.  Multi-tasking is a joy to the scattered Gemini brain.  (My husband, in direct opposition, enjoys commercials & re-runs, watching with the glazed eyes of a bloodhound observing a Milk-Bone commercial.  He dozes off, then wakes himself with a snort.)

Sometimes, I get frustrated.  We have quite a heavy viewing schedule.  The person in charge of the remote control is expected to hit the button as fast as possible whenever fast forwarding is an option.  (We’ve had actual altercations.  What is the proper waiting time (in seconds) before the person without the changer is allowed to derisively suggest the fast forwarding option?)   It’s a heavy burden.

When the television schedule is weak we have Blockbuster movies.  (For example, The Changeling with Angelina Jolie last week scored a 9.5 with all of us.  Milk, for me at least, was a full 10.  Sean Penn was outrageous!)  If the movies have run dry, we turn to recorded shows on the DVR. 

The kitchen is nearby for snacking purposes.

Momentarily moving away from the original subject at hand, recently my bowling partner, Lynn, informed me that she has seen “less than 100 movies in her entire lifetime.”  I’d have been less shocked to hear of a vine extending from her vagina, eating away at her leg. 

She is 50 years old & computer literate, not visually unusual in any way I can surmise.  She is not Amish.  Mathematically speaking — and I’m no genius — we’re talking fewer than 2 movies PER YEAR.  Surely Patty Hearst was allowed more than that even while kidnapped.

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Anyway, my point is I recently found

 THE BEST BOOK I’VE EVER READ:

Emergency!: True Stories From The Nation’s ERs

Mark Brown, M.D., collected these stories from around the country.  It’s truly fantastical.  I’ve always abeen a fan of reality, but this is super-charged. 

WARNING:  Read no further if you lap up milk with your tongue & frequently make meowing sounds . . .

Let me give you just a sample from a piece titled “The Wish” on page 14:

“In an upper-income community hospital Emergency Department, a fifty-year-old matron complained of mild abdominal pain and fever.  The patient was on an antidepressant, but she had no other significant medical history.  Her physical exam was unremarkable.  Lab tests did little to further the diagnosis.  I decided to proceed with a pelvic exam. . .

“The pelvic exam revealed that the patient’s labia were pinned together with three large, rusty safety pins.

“The patient apparently had a long psychiatric history, including obsessive behavior focused on her inability to bear children.  Two weeks earlier, the patient had purchased a small chicken at the market and had inserted it, piece by piece, into her vagina.  She had pinned her labia to keep the chicken in place and was waiting for it to develop into a baby.

“The patient was subsequently admitted to the psych unit, but not before she was washed out with two liters of Betadine douche and the entire chicken carcass was accounted for.”

GREGORY DAVID POST, M.D.  New York, New York

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Here’s one more that explains the previously mentioned “vagina vine.”  It’s entitled “The Human Vineyard” (pages 72-73):

“An elderly female comes to the Emergency Department complaining: ‘I got the green vines in my virginny.’  The patient reports a two-week history of a vine growing from her vagina.  On physical examination it is discovered that she does indeed have a vine growing out of her vagina, about six inches in length.  A pelvic exam reveals a mass which is easily removed from the vaginal vault, vine still attached.  Upon extraction, the patient reports that her uterus had been falling out and that she ‘put a potato in there to hold it up’ and subsequently forgot about it.”

JOHN RIORDAN, M.D.  Charlotte, North Carolina

The book gets better with each page.

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I am so completely jealous of ER nurses now.  The germ factor would be an issue, but I think I’d be willing to get over it.