When my wife was about to have our first baby, we brought a tape recorder to the delivery ward to capture the sounds of the birth, the baby’s first cry and our doctor’s voice saying, "It’s a boy!" or "It’s a girl!" We intended to use the tape as a fun message on our answering machine to help announce the birth to friends and relatives.
My wife’s labor went relatively smoothly and, when it seemed appropriate, I inserted the blank tape and began recording. Shortly thereafter, our baby was born and we all heard the first cry. The doctor held up the baby and, with tape rolling, loudly proclaimed, "Wow, will you look at the scrotum on him!"
A customer walked into my pharmacy asking for a particular nasal spray. "You know, that brand is very addicting," I warned her. "If it’s used for a prolonged period of time, your congestion can come back worse than before, prompting even further use."
"That’s ridiculous," scoffed the woman. "I’ve been using it every day for years."
The voice-dictation program a physician friend of mine purchased for his computer often misinterpreted words. Once, my friend dictated, "Recommend CAT scan if symptoms persist."
The program typed out, "Recommend casket if symptoms persist."
My friend Esther told me about her son’s fifth-grade career day, where the children were asked, "Who knows what a psychiatrist does?"
Esther’s son replied, "That’s someone who asks you to lie down on a couch and then blames everything on your mother."
After the birth of our second child, my husband volunteered to undergo a vasectomy. The morning of his appointment, I could tell he was nervous. Then, as he was about to leave for the doctor’s office, he turned to me and said, "I’m certainly wearing the right jeans today."
"Why?" I asked. "Are they too loose on you?"
"No," he replied. "I’m talking about the brand name—Faded Glory."
Customer-service reps repeat the same tired phrases so often that we can do the job in our sleep. We hear a beep telling us a customer’s on the line, and we’re on. I never knew how this humdrum routine affected us until a co-worker had heart surgery.
She was coming to, following her operation, when she heard the beep of the heart monitor. In her anesthetized stupor, she groggily said, "This is Sue. Can I help you?"
