What Made You Think I Wanted Mayonnaise on My Sandwich?

I was a fussy eater as a child. I will admit that. Mealtimes were a real stressor for me and my family especially when we travelled or ate out. Over the years I have introduced a large number foods, that I hated or wouldn't eat as a child into my diet.

The exceptions however are mayonnaise and its co-offender mustard.

These two condiments are ubiquitously added to sandwiches and other foods without any consideration as to whether people would actually like them on their food. If you go to a self serve lunch counter or a 7-11 and pick up a sandwich, it will most certainly have mayo and may also have mustard. When I am at a meeting and someone brings in sandwiches, if I am really hungry I will have to choke down a sandwich slathered in mayo or mustard.

Why those two. There must be 100s of condiments we could routinely add to our food. Heinz alone has 57 sauces. Go to a supermarket or specialty store and look at what's available in the sauces category and there may be 100s of distinct sauces to flavour your sandwich. Why has our society chosen those two sauces. Better still, why does our society insist on putting any sauce on a sandwich when it is so much easier to allow people to actually make a choice.

Problems With Patients

I am very sensitive about my interactions with patients since that godawful RateMDs.com came up. So I try to please everybody but sometimes you are stretched thin.

For example.

I saw a young lady in the pain clinic several years ago. We tried various therapies but eventually she ended up on oral narcotics and went back to her GP who took over prescribing. Several months ago she phone me stating that her GP had retired (true) and that she was waiting for an appointment to see a new GP (this is called a meet and great appointment). She asked if I would fax in a prescription for her. Remembering her and liking her, I was happy to do so. A few months later she phoned stating that she had missed her appointment with this GP and now would have to wait a few more months and you know what... So I faxed in another prescription. There was a third request stating she only needed a few pills until next week.

Finally last week she called with a convuluted story about seeing the long awaited GP followed by referral to someone else and involving missing an appointment of course. She couldn't remember the name of her new GP so I couldn't phone to verify this story. I told her that I had already faxed 3 prescriptions and that I was unwilling to fax another without seeing her. I told her if she could find the name of her new GP I would phone the GP on her behalf. She never phoned back.

A few months ago I saw a new patient with fibromyalgia. She came accompanied by another lady and the two of them sang my praises. This should have tipped me off. She was on a lot of non-narcotic medications and after some discussion I agreed to prescribe a short acting narcotic to tide her over. I gave her 100 pills and asked her to come back in 4 weeks. Just short of the 4 weeks I got a faxed request from the pharmacy for another 100 pills. Guess what...she no-showed for her next appointment. So in about 4 weeks I got another request for 100 pills with a note from the pharmacist saying she had missed her appointment because of an MVA, I refused to refill the prescription without seeing her again. She no-showed for her next appointment and presumably she and her friend are no longer singing my praises. I can only hope she doesn't have internet access.

My Time is More Valuable Than Yours

A few nights ago I was on call.

We had the usual collection of urgent cases, nothing really that couldn't wait for a few hours or even a few days. One of the surgeons had two cases. They were less urgent than the other cases we had so would normally be done after the more urgent cases.

Now this surgeon who is a nice guy, started asking if he could go before the other cases stating that he had to be home by a certain time because his wife was going out of town for a few days and he had to be home to look after the kids (and presumably have sex with his wife before she left).

Now the bottom line here is: he is on call. I am also on call and I have personal things in my life that I have to miss when I am on call. So when I need to do something in the personal area, I ask one of my colleagues to cover for me. Occasionally somebody is able to do that. Some surgeons are in very small groups or do procedures that only they know how to do. Now this surgeon has a large number of other surgeons in his group who could have covered for him and it was a very basic procedure. But instead of calling up one of his colleagues he instead makes the nurses and me feel guilty.

This isn't an isolated case, surgeons are always pulling this stunt to get their cases done.

The bottom line is we all have to take call some more than others. We all have a personal life (some more than others) which our work affects. But when you pull a stunt like this, you are saying, my time and my life is more important than yours.

It's been a long time since I wrote

I noticed that the last post before the one I just posted referred to my distaste with the shootout which means that the entire playoffs passed without my commenting on them.

My comments.

1. Without any team that I cared strongly about, the playoffs passed relatively quickly not like last year when I watched just about every Oiler's game.

2. The Canucks lost because they had too many Europeans. Same with Ottawa.

3. While it is somewhat off-putting to see Chris Pronger's name on the Stanley Cup, Todd Bertuzzi's would have been more of a travesty.

4. Mike Comrie has excelled on Ottawa being something he couldn't accept that he was on Edmonton, a third line player (entitled to a third line player's salary)

5. The Canuck's loss in the playoffs only justifies what I have said for years, that the Sedin twins are the most overrated players in the league.

Tim Horton's Iced Mocha

Now I realize that Tim Horton's is a business and that if I don't like things there, I can go somewhere else; however face it Tim's has promoted itself as a national icon, the government issues currency thru it (remember the poppy quarters), and our current governing party used restaurants suspiciously like Tim's in it electoral ads etc. Besides I have a long relationship with Tim Horton's going back to my internship in Halifax where I discovered this strange chain named after a 1960s era Leaf player which didn't then exist in BC where I came from. Later I used to stock up on coffee and a donut in Truro on the way to my girlfriend's to gird myself for the amorous adventures that would shortly follow. I know where the nearest Tim's is to every hockey arena in Edmonton, and the location of every Tim's between Edmonton and Vancouver. So I think I have a stake in Tim Horton's.

But something is pissing me off.

It's the Ice Mochas. Tims brought these in a few years ago. I've had a few, they taste okay. The problem is the machines never work. So when you pop into Tims for a quick coffee on your way to or from somewhere, you are sure to be delayed by the person in front of you ordering multiple Iced Mochas. This not only ties up the person making the iced mocha but also the other employees who have to come over and try to make the stupid machine work.

Tim Hortons was built on doing two things well. Making a decent cup of coffee and baking donuts. Their success (thankfully) was not based on iced mochas.

And basically what is an iced mocha. To the best I can see it is a hybrid between a milkshake and a slurpee. Many places do either of these well. Leave it to those places Tim and let those of us who want their coffee, to get it quickly and efficiently.

The Shootout

This is something I have been meaning to write about for some time, however today's hockey results have brought things to a head.

Firstly I am not a Leaf's fan. I would rather they got in the playoffs than the Habs who I hate, however it is not a big disappointment that the Islanders and not the Leafs got into the playoffs. In fact it is probably better for all of us, as it will assure that every game of the Ottawa series is televised nationally (because you know the geniuses who schedule the playoff games would have had Toronto and Ottawa playing the same night).

However the Islanders who blew a 2 goal lead in the last 4 minutes, got to the playoffs by virtue of winning in a shootout. Now I know that over the 82 game season everybody wins or loses by shootouts and that fact that it happens in the 82 game with a playoff position on the line, shouldn't be used for or against shootouts.

However....

What a crappy way to break a tie.

Firstly during the regular season do you really need to break a tie? Soccer which is the world's most popular game doesn't. (They do unfortunately use a shootout in playoff games and two World Cups have been decided by penalty shots.) College football allows ties, NFL and CFL football allow ties after an overtime period. Basketball and baseball have overtime but play until somebody wins.

So if you need to break a tie why, not play until somebody wins. That is of course what happens in the NHL playoff which occasionally results in 2-3 periods of overtime which is clearly impractical in the regular season.

There is a simpler solution which most Canadian NHL players are already familiar with because it is used to break ties in minor hockey. The NHL already uses a version of it in that they start 4 on 4.

My solution, start 4 on 4 and play until the first stoppage in play after 2 minutes. Then each team takes off one player and plays 3 on 3 for 2+ minutes and so on. They can either keep on taking players off or just play 3 on 3 until somebody scores. Some of the most exciting minor hockey games I saw went down to one on one. Imagine Crosby and Ovechkin one on one. A lot more interesting than watching them taking penalty shots?

The whole problem with the shootout is that it brings the whole game down 4 players, the shooters and the goalie. Now hockey is unfair in that the best team often doesn't win, however usually when a badly outplayed team ekes out a tie after 60 minutes it is usually because of the play of their goalie and of their star players who are able to score against the flow of play. So, who do you now let decide the game?

The other problem I have is that the team who wins in a shootout gets 2 points, same as a team that wins 8-0. Stupid. They should make it 3 points for a win, 2 for an OT/SO win an one for an OT/SO loss. (I know, I saw an analysis in the Globe and Mail where such a system really wouldn't make much difference to the standings but fair is fair).

But say the supporters of the SO, "the fans love the shootout". I suppose the fans who buy the 2 for $9.99 tickets the American teams use to fill their stadiums do. Probably the people who attend the odd game with their company's season tickets do. I doubt the individual fan who shells out $3-5K per season for a season ticket likes the shootout. And if "the fans love the shootout" why not use it in the playoffs? I could actually do with not coming to work bleary eyed from April to June.

How I Almost Got the Strap

I was a pretty good student. I got good marks, behaved well etc.

In Grade five though I almost got the strap. I have gone over this incident in my head for the succeeding 39 years and now wish to come clean.

When I was in school we had corporal punishment which meant being hit on the hand with a modified leather strap a number of times depending on the severity of your offense or your record. "The Strap" was administered out of sight in the Principal's office or occasionally in the hall or the cloakroom by your teacher. Usually 1-2 children got "The Strap" every year which increased the mystique behind it.

I never got "The Strap" which I will explain later but I suspect it hurt a lot less than the spankings most of us got from our parents. It was the mystique behind "The Strap" which was sufficient to keep most of us in order.

Now I say I was well behaved but this may not have been the case in Grade 5. We had that year, a very old teacher who had always taught Grade 1 and 2 but this year was given a split Grade 5 and 6 class. Not only that, but she was given the worst Grade 6s in the school. So things got a little out of control in our class shall we say, and I probably took advantage of that. Nothing serious, more talking out of turn, that sort of stuff.

On the day in question, two or more of the Grade 6 boys had got a piece of pipe-cleaner from an art project and had rolled it into a small compact stick that they were throwing back and forth around the class. Every once in a while the teacher at the blackboard would catch it out of the corner of her eye and wheel around. It got quite annoying actually.

Just after lunch, the projectile landed on my desk. I had two conflicting emotions. I was fed up at this thing being thrown around the class, but at the same time now that it was on my desk, I was scared that I was going to be blamed. Logically I should have closed my hand around it, stood up walked to the garbage and deposited it. Instead I did something really stupid. I threw the projectile in the general direction of the garbage can which was next to the teacher's desk, which was where she was sitting at that time. Instead of landing in the garbage can, it landed on the teachers desk.

The result that I, along with two Grade 6 boys, was marched to the principal's office. The principal however was sick that day and the secretary who normally would have summoned the vice-principal (who gave the strap much harder than the principal) to the office was not at her desk. Our teacher said, fine we'll come back after school.

I remember coming back to my desk and shaking uncontrollably. I don't think I learned a thing that afternoon.

After school the three of us stayed at our desks, waiting to be taken to the office. A few people in the class hung around to watch us make the walk. The teacher came to us and said, "Are you ready to go?", I said yes. She said "Do you want to go" I said no. She said that if we promised to behave for the rest of the year we would not get "The Strap".

I left the school feeling freer than I have ever felt before or after.