Hey, y'all, watch this!

I got this picture from timesonline.co.uk. It is part of an article done on the Seminole Alligator wrestling festival.

It was not taken in Iraq. but it reminded me of some the acts of stupidity I have grown accostumed to seeing. 

We have treated several tragedies which involve some level of stupidy; head injuries from 1) on-concrete-tackle-football-player, and 2) an assortment of roll over accidents with a vehicle racing theme (generally, not a good idea in recently bombed place where roads average one studio apartment sized defect per mile, there are no lane markers or street lights).  There have been suicide attempt plummets from just 3 stories high, and one poor soul who tried by taking a bottle of laxatives. 

In the ICU, the humor in stupidity-accidents is shrouded with horror.  If they are here, they were exceedingly stupid, or, more often, exceedlingly unlucky, and perhaps a little foolish.  The ER gets much better stupid stories.  The guy who shot his buddy witha pellet gun in the butt while looking to shoot the birds (too keep them off the flight line).  The Colonel who busted his face when he passed out on the treadmill (ok, not so stupid, but funny nonetheless to see the man with full birds on this shoulders and no front tooth).  The car wreck from the "bright shine of the reflective belt [of the person walking in front of the car]." The plethora of ankle twists and broken fingers from the soccer games played with basketballs on the 2ft elevated basketball court (!!??!?!).  And of course, you will recall the story I told a few weeks ago about the dog suit and the K9 unit...   ...well, one of the ER docs broker her clavicle, while in the suit, after being slung to the ground by the 75lb German shepard. 

There is one young man who had come back with testicular pain 2 weeks in a row (from excessive masturbation) in efforts to see the lovely female urologist.  Between his visits, our replacement/new physician-o-male-hardware is sure to perform a not too gentle rectal exam to reduce this and similar visits.  So far he has successfully reduced this recidivism.

Stupid things happen everywhere, but the seriousness of this place makes the absurdity so much more poignant.  So, we have no alligator mouths in which to thrust our heads, but you can get a rise for much less than that around here.