Nothing But Love :: golf blogger

Doctor Visit

I volunteered to drive my lovely wife to her appointment to see her doctor at the Cleveland Clinic, which needs more than one Starbucks now that it has spread over 40 city blocks. Parked next to the City EMS truck and a line of hearse-like ambulances with several names on them at the emergency room area of the Cleveland Clinic was "Martin's Ambulette."

What the fuck is an "ambulette?"

Is it an ambulance with tiny instruments? I don't know. So, when I got home, I looked it up on dictionary.com because while I was waiting in the waiting area for my lovely wife to get done with her appointment, I couldn't look it up because they -- yes, the nameless, faceless "they," were jamming my Motorola Q and I couldn't get any reception. They stopped telling people to turn off cell phones, finding it was cheaper, in terms of time savings, to simply generate a magnetic field to cover the entire Cleveland Clinic, thereby preventing cell phone use and the resulting explosions of sensitive medical equipment.

I didn't expect the word to be in the dictionary, but it is there. Dictionary.com defines ambulette as "a specially equipped motor vehicle for transporting convalescing or handicapped people." Well, where the fuck have I been that I never heard of this development in the English language until today? I learned something new, but that wasn't the first new thing I learned today.

While sitting in the waiting area after getting my parking voucher stamped at the intake desk, I noticed that the television was tuned to the Cleveland Clinic channel, an "educational" station, starring MSNBC talking head Natalie Allen.

Here's what I learned while watching: (1) music played in the operating room has been shown by scientific studies to be beneficial to the surgeons who were operating; (2) women who get at least 7 hours of sleep per night have been shown by scientific studies to gain less weight on the average over a two-year period that women who get 5 hours of sleep or less, if neither is on a weight-loss program; (3) listening to music has been shown by scientific studies to be beneficial for one's overall health; (4) in scientifically examining 50 studies on the effect of alcohol on heart health, all of which claim that there are substantial benefits to drinking alcohol for heart health, all of the studies exaggerate the benefit and are flawed because they do not account for other variables; (5) optimistic men have been shown by scientific studies to be more likely to be free from serious heart problems than those who are pessimistic; (6) women have been shown by scientific studies to visit doctors more often than men for examination and treatment; (7) kids with something to do have been shown by scientific studies to be less likely to become drug abusers than those kids who are not active; (8) for baby boomers, 12 miles of walking per week has been shown by scientific studies to have the the same benefits as and less adverse effects on health than 12 miles of running per week; and (9) burning 1000 calories per week exercising in some way has been shown by scientific studies to extend life; and (10) three women who know each other have much, much louder conversations, by many magnitudes, than two women who know each other.

It's all scientifically proven, except the last one. They were very loud.

Posted by Bill at February 26, 2007 09:53 PM