“Alas, the brain is a receptacle for nonsense”. So says Dr. Fishelson, a character in one of Nobel Prize winner Isaac Bashevis Singer’s stories. “This earth belongs to the mad”. It often feels that way. Scholars used to study their texts. Now they text about their studies. And they do that on IPHONES and TABLETS and ANDROID devices that are also capable of ASR and that have PHOTO APPS in case PIX are needed. It is all done in a mysteriously abbreviated language accessible only to the elect. The acronymns alone can tax your memory. Granted, some we readily understand. If invited to a meeting we expect an RSVP, but not necessarily an ASAP or a FYI.
Who would have thought that we ever get used to EBOOKS and GAME on PADS or rest our brains in front of BLU-RAY compatible HDTV sets with 3D capability and connectivity to a variety of CDs and DVDs, DV AVIs, or even VINYLs, if we have kept them. Clearly this sort of R&R activity requires a special mix of DNA which no SAT scores will ever reveal, and it all depends on your DOB anyway, as any AARP member will attest.
Recently a lady friend of ours tried to call her new doctor. She could reach only his PA, however. We asked her if the new doctor was a GI. No, she said, he was actually an OB, but certainly an MD, not an OD, a member of AMA with a Ph.D. to boot. Thank God not a VET as well, I thought. She had seen him before, she said. He was up on EHR and had her EMR in hand. He had ordered some LAB work, an EKG, and a CAT scan. (She actually likes dogs better but she let that go). Luckily, she did not need an MRI, nor any ENDO-, ANO-, SIGMOIDO-, RHINOLARYNGO-, or other SCOPES. What is the DOS on your last EOB?, I asked her, tongue in cheekly. Shouldn’t have said that. She was in no mood for any kind of humor. Apparently she was also found to have AFIB and possibly DC and early signs of HCM, things you cannot cure with OTC pills. We saw her in the ER later, even though we were not NOK.
Yesterday, Thursday, the UPS man rang the door bell. Turns out that it was not UPS but the USPS with a letter from the IRS. The tax man has been a VIP since antiquity, or at least since the beginning of the CE, a person feared but not loved. The messenger wanted my ID and my SOCIAL. FIFO or LIFO? Irrelevant in my life and I should not have been afraid as any CPA would have told me. I support the ASPCA, UNICEF, USO, and the VFW, after all, and I keep all my W2’s and my SSA 1099’s. But I had a feeling, an attack of ESP I suppose, and went straight to the ATM and MAXED out my account. But that was yesterday, and the FMS found that all my YTD numbers were A-OK. ROGER, what a relief.
TGIF.
(Gesundheit!)
(c)2017 by Herbert H. Hoffman