Once upon a time, there were three women who all happened to enter nursing school at the same time. They met in the back row of nusring 101, which was held in the auditorium. Much of the early lectures was so basic as to nearly bring tears of boredom...one dark comment led to another, and the three of us became sisters. Sisters in womanhood. Sisters in the fight to stay sane going to college in our thirties while surrounded by giggling girls just out of highschool. Sisters in the high form of humor known as sarcasm. Not the HURTING kind, mind you... the intelligent kind of sarcastic humor... the kind that requires a knowledge of grammar, syntax, even spelling. To be a sister of sarcasm, you also had to be a pro at puns. And, like the stand-up comics, timing was everything.
For example, we took Anatomy and Physiology over the Summer; this was the full course, usually lasting three months, crammed into six weeks. To pass this class, you had to live, breathe, and eat Anatomy and Physiology for those six weeks. There were four hours of lecture five days a week, plus lab time, which was when the REAL learning went on! Being a cat lover all my life, I was absolutely mortified to open the drawer in the "morgue" and find that the subject of our dissection was feline! Our threesome, the sisters of sarcasm, drew straws to see who would have "the honors" of doing the initial removal of fur, skin and fascia. Ugh. Needless to say, I drew the short straw...
Let me tell you, removing any sort of fur or skin which has been soaking in formaldehyde for a year or so is difficult! Yucky. Smelly. Even though we wore gloves, I had that formaldehyde odor stuck in my nostrils and in my hands the entire six weeks! I lost thirty pounds!!! Maybe I should try it again sometime soon... (See, that was a bit of sarcasm, yes?)
But, I digress. The three of us were lab "partners". Yes, I know, partners implies two, but, there were three nontheless. As I mentioned above, I was the one who removed all the outer stuff. revealing muscles, tendons, nerves, organs, and veins and arteries which had been injected with blue and red latex dyes so that they would show up. All the body systems were displayed before us. Then, our instructor walked over, saw that the poor ol' cat had a big tumor on its bladder and declared that we would have to start over... the cat cadaver wasn't "safe" for us to work on, and would have to be incinerated.
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| I'll bet these cat owners wanted to incinerate them! |
Oh, man! Now, we had to do all the preliminary work over again! And, this setback put us behind the other students. Once again, we drew straws to see who would have to do the dirty work. And, once again, I drew the short straw. Disgusted, I dove into the project. Quickly this time. No "Poor Kitty... I wonder if it was somebody's pet." Just cut, tear, rip, cut, pull... well, you get the idea. I got our second cat stripped in about one-tenth the time it took to do the first one. The instructor came over for inspection, and said, " Well, Twyla, what have you learned so far?" Deadpan, I replied, "There's more than one way to skin a cat."
Okay, so I'm actually the Queen of Sarcasm. I can't seem to help myself. Puns, jokes, song lyrics, nicknames, rhymes, and odd little plays on words run through my movie screen all the time. It's not that I WANT to be a smart***; it just seems to be who I am!
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| You didn't really think I'd show a picture of me in the shower... |
Some people provide more fodder for this type of humor than others. Enter Moshe... He walks into it on an almost constant basis. For example, this morning I was in the bathroom taking a shower. Moshe walks in, and says, "Hey, are you taking a shower?" My reply, "No, I'm just in here checking to see if the water's working." One day a couple months ago, I was in the kitchen. I had the big pressure cooker going, two or three big pots cooking on the stove, canning jars everywhere... It's 90+ degrees in the kitchen, and I'm soaking wet from work, heat, and humidity. Moshe walks in the back door and says, "Are you hot?"
Reply, "No. I LIKE looking like this. Oh, and feeling like this, too."
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| The Queen, wearing her crown... |
Fortunately, Moshe always laughs. Well, almost always... One time we were having a loud discussion - y'know what I mean? Okay, we were arguing! I don't remember at all what about. I had gone to bed on the sofa. Uh-oh! In the middle of the night a naked Moshe came out to the living room to try to make ammends.I said something not-nice, and Moshe said, "Well, I guess you think you wear the pants in this house." My reply, "Well, I'm the only one wearing any." He didn't laugh that time.
Shalom Y'all - Twyla
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