Daft Old Duffer returns. Guest opinion articles do not necessarily reflect the views of the publication. Ed
A couple of weeks back my doctor sent me for a blood test. And to my surprise in place of the usual vial-full, the nurse extracted a whole row of them.
As I watched the shots line up on her tray I said – “You’re not going to take it all, are you?”
And was met with the usual “I suppose that’s one of those male jokes” smiles the ladies are so practised at.
Back for more testing
A day or so later the doctor rang me up and said he’d detected something in my sample he wanted to check, and would I therefore book another test.
I did, and the same nurse as before said “Haven’t I seen you quite recently?”
And I replied “yes, apparently you didn’t take enough last time.”
Again the slightly puzzled, “what’s he talking?” about smile. But this time with a touch of – “did I make a mistake?” apprehension.
So I added “He wanted a gallon and you only took a couple of pints.”
The smile was replaced with a definite frown of worry.
Only joking
So – and every male in the land will recognise this moment – I felt compelled to explain I was just joking and was being retested because the doctor had noticed something unusual and needed to check.
Now obviously the lass was not daft. Not only was she a qualified nurse, the fact of being Polish (I think) meant she was proficient not only in at least two languages – her own and English – but at ease with all the necessary medical and technical terms in both languages.
So definitely at least one up on me.
Why then did my plainly scintillating, TV -worthy, star-quality humour pass her so completely by?
A perennial puzzle
It’s a perennial puzzle, emphasised for me when I watched a re-run of Smack The Pony, an all-female comedy programme I gave up on the first time it showed.
For me, some of the sketches were mildly humorous – no more than that – whilst the most were entirely incomprehensible. No punch line, no off the cuff cracks, just a serious of plainly talented women acting a bit silly.
Thus the question remains. Who are these creatures, from whence do they come and what do they want from us.
