I was once in a doctor's office filling out paperwork for my mother. She's just about blind and pretty much deaf ... so there we are, and I'm going through the list of medications they had questions about, and some I could figure she wasn't on, but we came to MAOIs and she said she wasn't sure, what was it, what was it for ... all this conducted at a shout in a crowded waiting room. Luckily, she had a list - a LONG list - of what she WAS taking.

Luckily, she had a list - a LONG list - of what she WAS taking.

Dad has that (and I have it, too), but I had to tell him to WRITE DOWN what he's allergic to and then give the actual, physical list to the doctor if he can't fucking say it right.

Which was not the nicest way to handle it, but seriously, he was bleeding from his stomach because he mispronounced a drug name.

My sleep psych took a few minutes to write down krav maga. Now, it's eight letters, and I enunciate well. The only reason that should have been so difficult for her was that she wasn't actually paying much attention to my spelling.

I also think it's pretty easy to get the spelling once you've heard it pronounced five or so times, like she had, but judging medical professions is about a hobby for me now.

I used to have old-fashioned calling cards with just my name on them that I'd hand to people. Didn't help over the phone, though. I have to spell both my names a lot, because there are several variants of my last name and some people will insist on spelling my first name with an s instead of a z. My *real* first name was incredibly difficult to get people to spell or say correctly, which is why I changed it.

Glad to hear Daniel's doing better.

Continued recovery-ma for Daniel. Staph infections are indeed a bear.

Oh, as usual, dear. The Onion has to explain satire.

I don't know. I like The Onion, but that first tweet? What makes it satire? All by itself, what makes it qualify as satire? What is it satirizing?

I get that they said it was connected to an article of theirs, but...that first tweet was kind of a dick move. The ones about Congressmen taking kids hostage -- that's OTT enough that it's funny.

I don`t find it too funny but that first tweet wa definitely a dick move.

You make it OTT enough, and people get that you're trying to make a joke. But the first tweet was pretty damn generic, you know? And even people/publications that claim to be satirists do occasionally communicate things that are meant to be taken as truth.

Yeah, that first tweet with nothing else practically begs the reader to freak out, especially with all the terrorism consciousness that's been drilled into America over the last 10 years. Maybe if they'd reversed the order of the first two tweets -- maybe.