the patient with a defective spine from hell

While I was sitting on the lobby, waiting for my turn to see the doctor, this middle aged guy sitting beside me struck up a conversation. He asked why I wanted to see the doctor, so I replied. I explained to him how I injured my knee and that I was here for a consultation. After that, I felt obliged to ask why he wanted to see the doctor - I guess that's how conversations in these situations go. So he replied and told me that he had an operation done on his spine and that this was a post-op visit.

Frankly, I was expecting that that was it - end of friendly patient-to-patient conversation. But, as it turns out, that guy was a total freak. I was really caught off guard. He suddenly started talking about THE-THREE-THINGS-WEIRDOS-LIKE-TO-TALK-ABOUT, i.e., religion, philosophy and government. What's worse, he kept asking me personal questions - the type of personal questions that neither your close friends nor your parents will dare ask while you're in a clinic lobby with many people who can easily hear what your saying. At that time, all I wanted to do was run out of the clinic and get away as far as possible.

So, his self-righteous and condescending ramblings went on for about thirty minutes, while I sat there without uttering a word, wishing I had a remote control where I can just press mute. Fortunately, he finally gave up after realizing that I wasn't buying any of his bullshit. So he opened his backpack, took out a Bible (I'm definitely sure that it was a bible because the letters H, O, L, Y, B, I, B, L, E were visible on the front cover) and he started reading it.

Up until now, I still could not make out what he was trying to do. I don't know if he was just plain old crazy or if, as the title of this post goes, a patient with a defective spine from hell.

there's hope for my 70 year old left knee

Ten years ago, I had accident while playing basketball. I ended up with a swollen knee and eventually, the inability to play basketball without having to move like a retard. Not just that, for ten years I could not play any sport on this planet that is capable of traumatizing a knee to the point where your face turns into an exact replica of that famous Edvard Munch painting. Unfortunately, at that time, I didn't have a job - I couldn't even afford to buy a PC with a 3GB hard drive (note that this happened ten years ago and at that time a 3GB hard drive was more than enough to download all the pr0n on the Internet) , much more paying for an ACL reconstruction.

Anyway, I'm part of the system now - I work, pay taxes, social security, health care, etc. SOooo, I was thinking of having the surgery. I've been talking to an orthopedic jedi and he says that he'll put balance to my knees so that I won't be walking towards the dark side, so to speak.

You know what, I miss making a simple lay-up without having to think if my leg will still be attached to my body when my feet touches the ground. Hopefully, I can pull this off.

it's not easy being subtle

The-Company gave me a set of documents tucked inside a blue folder. I was smirking at the time it was handed off to me and read the huge warning in front of it - the words "STRICTLY CONFIDENTIAL!" was plastered in front. Yes, it has an exclamation point at the end (well, as far as I can recall). My guess is that putting that warning is used to fend off prying eyes, because really, it makes those documents look so inconspicuous.