If I Wasn't Laughing I'd Be Crying

Did you know that there are about 6 quarts of blood in the average human body? A pint of blood weighs about a pound and 15 million blood cells are produced and destroyed in the human body every second. In a normal adult woman there are 4,500,000 red blood cells per cubic millimeter. In 1865 a guy named Max Johann Sigismund Schultze described the platelet for the very first time. The platelet lives about 8 to 10 days, then it is sequestered in the spleen. Ten percent of the population has one or more accesory spleen. In French, spleen refers to a state of pensive sadness or melancholy. However, the Talmud refers to the spleen as an organ of laughter. Sicilians may serve you a sandwich called the "pani ca meusa", or bread with spleen and caciocavallo cheese.

Mom used to have an accesory spleen, but the surgeons removed all trace of spleen from her body in 1998. A normal platelet count in a healthy person is between 150,000 and 400,000 per mm³ of blood. It's a spectacular day if the CBC shows mom has 60,000. Since December, she has received 2 gallons of blood and 3 pints of platelets. I just pulled a Debbie Downer on you, didn't I?

On to the amusing part! My job is a constant source of frustration and disbelief punctuated with hoopla. During supervision with my boss, F-bomb, he showed me the comment sheets his students gave him about his stress class. Question 5: "What would make this a better class?" Baloney In His Pocket Guy answered: "More touching!" Cranky Lady answered "A bigger room." Question 3: "On a scale of 1 to 5, 5 being the best, how would you rate this class?" Anonymous answer: "True." Yesterday I had a pants malfunction: a button popped off which proved to be the most critical button ever. Without it, my pants slowly but surely set forth to the deep south. None of my co-workers had a safety pin, so I folded the waist over and held it in place with my pager clasp until I found a paperclip. I went to an assisted living facility to pick up a patient. One of the large, creepy men from Eldercare saw me coming and told his friend "She's my girlfriend she's my girlfriend." See, he quietly repeats everything he says. And he thinks he's Elvis. Seriously. I couldn't make this stuff up if I tried. "Hey sweetie! Hey sweetie!" he called, and lumbered forth with his arms wide for a hug. This is the part where I ran into the building and hid. He follwed me. My pants migrated. He found me. I readied my leg for a solid sidekick (just in case) and shooed him off. Luckily, Elvis left the building.