European Stars and Stripes (Newspaper) - January 04, 1990, Darmstadt, Hesse                                Columns discomfort is key word in modern medical care j by Dave Barry Kniehl Ridder newspapers recently my wife Beth was ravaged by a sudden unexpected outbreak of modern medical care. Well of technically she also had a medical problem which i won t go into Here except to say that it quickly faded into dim memory once the treatment began. Which is exactly the Point As you know if you be Ever been subjected to modern medical care the whole theory is that if they can make you feel awful enough you la begin to look Back on your original ailment with fondness. What they do is take out All your blood and put you in a tiny room where they expose you repeatedly to daytime television and every few hours total strangers come in to give you Lello and Slob you with Small medical harpoons and insert tubes at random into your body. Then they say Are you feeling better now or perhaps we should give you some More medical care  pretty soon you re on the floor using whatever limbs they forgot to disable or remove to scrabble toward the elevator your butt sticking into the air through a Hospital garment no larger than a Standard Handi wipe your tubes dragging 15 or 20 feet behind you and spewing a telltale Trail of Lello that enables the Hospital people to track you Down and capture you in the parking lot and haul you Back to the tiny room for a few More tests aha a a a Hal actually Beth s doctor technically known As doctor Bob was very Nice. In fact everybody at the Hospital was Nice. But you never really know with the medical profession a lot goes on behind closed doors just a week before Beth went into the Hospital an Alert Reader named Pat Wilson in new Delhi India sent me an article from the Hindustan times about a doctor at a medical College Over there who wanted to determine the effect of human blood on the stomach when taken orally so he whipped up a Bunch of sandwiches made out of. Warning do not read the Reft of this sentence if you Are operating heavy machinery. Human Bone marrow. I am not making this up. According to the article the doctor fed the sandwiches to an unsuspecting colleague claiming that they contained a special sauce sent by his sister in  the doctor was suspended from the College. The colleague is still off his feed. This article kept popping into my brain while doctor Bob and the other skilled professionals were explaining to us in detailed scientific terms How come Beth needed an onslaught of preventive medical care even though she was feeling perfectly Fine. Do you have any questions the Hospital personnel kept asking. I had two main ones 1. How about we just forget this whole thing and Beth and i go Home now 2. You Guys definitely eat regular sandwiches at this Hospital right but i never found a Good time to ask these questions and so Early one morning i drove to the Hospital and surrendered Beth who this particular detail Sticks in my mind for some reason was still feeling perfectly Fine. They took her away and put masks on and committed acts of modern medical care on her and when they brought her Back she was experiencing what the medical Community likes to Call  this is like saying Hiroshima experienced Urban  i have not seen Beth experience so much discomfort since the time she experienced the Joy and wonder of natural childbirth during which she left Inch deep grip Marks in the steel Bedrail. So i kept lunging out into the corridor and tackling medical professionals around the Ankles and dragging them in to look at Beth. Yes they d explain helpfully while Beth was thrashing around and making soundtrack noises from the exorcist and in her occasional moments of rationality begging to be taken outside and shot she seems to be experiencing some  finally i was Able without medical raining to figure out myself what was wrong. No wonder she s in pain i exclaimed. Some maniac has put Staples into her i m serious. Right into her body. If you like so Many of us were Ever stapled in the hand by Waller Gorski in the fourth Grade you know that even one Staple is very painful Beth had enough to Supply a bustling Legal practice so you can imagine my Shock when i Learned that this had been done by of All people doctor Bob. Yes he was charging us to Staple Beth what is More he had installed a Drain. In my wife. I realized right then that Beth had to recover quickly because god knows what they would do to her next i might come in one morning and find a Kazoo sticking out of her forehead. Fortunately she got out and she s going to be Fine. Someday she May even feel As Good As before they started medically caring for her. So All s Well that ends Well and although i be been poking some fun Here Ai the medical Community i m sure you realize that deep Down inside i have a Large inflamed cyst of respect for it. Really. Trust me. Have a Sandwich. . The Bill for the Staples just the Staples was $63. Cash gift to Boss was improper but not immoral by miss manners United feature Syndicate dear miss manners the Boss was Given $100 each by two married men. She is married and she accepted the Cash As a Christmas present. I say no married Man with any morals would consider doing this especially if he thought anything of Home and family. And no married woman with morals would accept a gift of that amount. So that Means the tvo men were without morals to offer it and she had no morals in taking it. I think it was tasteless and rude. One of the wives it thinking of divorcing her husband Over it. It s full of trouble for All three parties. Gentle Reader miss manners Hopes that you Are not the wife thinking of divorcing her husband and that you will discourage any such action in cases of which you know. The situation you describe is trouble All right but not that much trouble. Presents to one s Boss Are inappropriate from any employee. Money Given in a working situation at the end of the year is called 3 Christmas Bonus and it is properly Given by a Boss to employees. To violate this practice May be foolish or subservient but it is not immoral. And who is married and what anybody thinks of his family has nothing whatever to do with it. Dear miss manners my husband and i were invited to a Christmas party with an open House invitation of the kind that you buy at a stationery store. It did not indicate the proper form of dress. We Are professional people in our Early 30s. We arrived at this party in casual dress my husband was without a jacket or tie and in deck shoes and i was in Slacks and a sweater and were unpleasantly surprised to find ourselves at a Dressy and catered affair. Many of the male guests were in tuxedos and the rest were in jacket and tie. The women were All in Holiday dresses. It was obvious when we arrived that the hostess was not pleased with our dress. We spent the first half hour wondering when we could leave. Finally we retreated to the Kitchen until we Felt it appropriate to excuse ourselves. When i saw the hostess at work afterwards i thanked her and said that we had thought it would be a More casual affair otherwise we would have dressed More appropriately. She responded of Well we had a Little bit of  i thought this response was unsuitable flippant. This experience leaves us wondering what went wrong and hoping it will never happen again. We feel that hosts have a responsibility to inform their guests either directly or through the tone of the invitation if the dress is to be anything but casual. Gentle Reader while it is True that hosts Are supposed to indicate what dress will be appropriate to their parties miss manners is not going to exonerate you As thoroughly As you might Hope. Among adults Standard dress is business attire unless you Are informed or know from intimacy with hosts habits otherwise. That is what you should have worn. The men in tuxedos were every bit As wrong in their dress As you were. But Why do you object to your hostess s being cheerfully flippant after the fact her comment generalizing the error and trivializing it seems to miss manners to have been in the right Lone. Would you have preferred next time you la know belter dear miss manners my dear Loving husband of Only four years it was a second marriage for us both passed away after a very tiring traumatic illness. We were together with every breath All through our married life and truly there could never be a happier Union. I never left his Side and we knew How very unusual this love was. I now have his wedding band. He had to have it made smaller several times because of his illness and now it fits either of my Middle fingers. Can i Wear it what is proper please this Little band of Gold Means so much let me know if i am going overboard thinking i might Wear this. Gentle Reader who on Earth do you think could be so callous As to forbid you such a Consolation never mind. Miss manners is Well acquainted with the horrid people who run around telling widows that they have to change their names or Stop wearing their rings both false statements of etiquette and suspiciously motivated. Miss manners needless to say is not among them. There Are no rules of etiquette concerning the rings a widow May Wear and none should that happen to come up about her changing her name. Dear miss manners should Signet and Monogram rings be worn so that the Crest and initials face the person wearing the ring or in the opposite direction so that the face of the ring is upright for an observer gentle Reader miss manners Hopes you do not fancy that such a ring has the same purpose As a designer Label explaining the provenance of the body wearing it. As it is not intended to be read by appraisers it is not worn to face the Public. 1990 Tript Migu int 3