Poor Jokes and Mad Cows.

In one of last night’s posts I vowed that when I went for my pre-op (like, today) I would employ the preferred answer to the question: ‘are you allergic to latex?’ And so I did:

Are you allergic to latex?

‘Only when used in conjunction with Johnson’s Baby Oil.’

A long, cold stare ensued.

I’m sorry?

‘It was a joke.’

She laughed, but only politely. I know the difference between a real laugh and a pretend laugh. I didn’t get where I am today without recognising the artificial when I see it. And I wouldn’t have made a provocative comment even if I’d wanted to because she hadn’t the presence to encourage the development of a good one. No young Polish nurses with sultry Slavic accents for me today, I’m afraid.

But later on she asked a question I haven’t been asked before:

Have you ever been told you have mad cow disease?

That’s a very odd question in my book. For a start, only cows get mad cow disease (which is correctly known as BSE, incidentally – Bovine Spongiform Encephalopathy.) Humans get the related CJD or vCJD. And then there’s the fact that she didn’t ask: ‘Have you ever been diagnosed with..?’ She asked: ‘Have you ever been told..?’

You see, I doubt I would have been there if I’d ever been diagnosed with CJD, which I gather is very serious and just about guaranteed to kill you in less than two years. Besides, I doubt very much that a doctor would have announced such a diagnosis with ‘You’ve got mad cow disease, mate.’ I don’t think ‘mad cow disease’ is a phrase any physician would use in connection with a fellow human being. So who did she think might have told me?

In the end I decided that the only possible response to ‘Have you ever been told you have mad cow disease?’ could be ‘only by me.’ So that’s what I said and she smiled slightly less politely than before.

Now, had she asked ‘have you ever been told you have mad alien disease’ I would have thought it a perfectly reasonable question and there would have been nothing to write a post about.

(It does occur to me, of course, that she might have been countering my poor jokes with one of her own and maybe I was supposed to smile politely. Don’t think so, somehow; she didn’t seem the type. No presence, you know. Pity, though; her joke would have been better than mine.)

And I have to go back tomorrow to collect my phone which I left behind. That’s a forty mile round trip and I’m a bit bloody peeved about it, so maybe the strange question was relevant after all.