Why Nurses Should Run the World (or, YOUR THORAZINE DRIP IS READY, SENATOR)

Like Vegas waitresses, nurses have seen it all. Unlike Vegas waitresses, nurses are too practical for wigs.

Nurses should run the world. Think about it. Nurses are like Super Parents: they have all the necessary parenting skills, PLUS they know how to fix (or sedate) you if you get into trouble. So many people need sedation before they get themselves (or any of us) into any more trouble. They can clean up things and see things that would make most people run screaming into the night AND they do it with calm and poise and efficiency. No one in the White House or Congress or Wall Street or in either political party have any of those qualities. AND, bet you never thought about how the capabilities of nurses today are whole orders of magnitude greater than those of doctors just 100 years ago.

Speaking of 100 years ago... Da-da would be a nurse in a second, as blood spurting in his eyes and brains in his cereal bowl are no problem for Da-da... but the smell of barf and Grape Nuts put him right over the edge.

Nurses are more powerful than manly men in boxes -- or even Grape Nuts. And they certainly
wouldn't put up with this kind of nonsense. Coffee enemas for everyone in Sector 7.
All political candidates are officially on 1000 cc thorazine drips for the duration.

You Can't Park That There

Fred's wondering what genius came up with this POS and
whether or not his helmet can hold more barf.

Note: This was a notoriously bad, jet-powered VTOL prop design that caused problems for all concerned, pilot and crew alike. Every time they fired this puppy up, everyone concerned -- pilot, landing crew, technicians, scientists -- got violently nauseous, to the point where everyone was adding their lunch to the tarmac. They eventually discovered that each prop tip (there were six, counter-rotating) was spinning so fast that each was instantly going supersonic, multiplied by six, the sextuple sonic shock waves coming off the prop tips making everyone hurl (human bodies apparently don't like that kinda thing). The fact that the pilot was barfing and couldn't see where he was landing (he faced forward, that is... UP) was also more than just a little annoying, if not incredibly dangerous. Yes, this makes the operation of this vehicle actually WORSE than being A Man Called Da-da. Not many jobs like that. But at least the military contractor made a bundle.

Da-da's Internal Parenting Callus Test

A bass player, or really any musician or tradesperson or skilled robot parent, develops special calluses due to repetitive action/pain (and like hitting yourself in the head with a ball peen hammer, it feels so good when it stops). In some cases, you can't really do the job properly without these calluses. (Bass players develop what's called, "mummy fingers," and can't play without them.) But what separates skilled robot parents and Emergency Room RNs from the others? Our calluses are on the inside.

Do YOU have the proper internal parent calluses necessary to parent effectively? Let's try a short quiz. Answer NO to any of the below and you've got an XL Pain and Suffering Pizza soon-to-be-delivered in 20 minutes or less.

     Da-da's Internal Callus Parenthood Test

1. Can you hear Force Five crying and screaming for hours and remain calm and effective? 
2. Can you hear other children's Force Five crying and screaming for hours and remain calm and effective? On a plane? Flying to Asia? (That's a 15-hour flight, Maurice.)  
3. Can you catch barf with your bare hands without batting an eye? Howbout fielding projectile vomit?
4. Can you remain calm and effective when you're changing a diaper and poop suddenly SHOOTS from the baby's business end fifteen feet across the room? (Yup, it happens.) And catches you in the eye? The mouth?
5. Can you be dispassionate when said poop shoots a ten foot brown line across your $25/sq. ft. wool berber carpetting? Howbout your walls? Ceiling? The cat?
6. Can you remain calm and effective when you discover a small child permanently tattooing a 40-foot scratch across your $50,000 white oak floor with a heavy toy he's dragging?
7. Jeez, six is enough.
   

Extra credit: You're at the beach with two screaming children, a toddler and a 3YO. Both have just barfed on you, and are now hungry, tired, one needs to be changed and the other has to go to the bathroom. You haven't slept more than two hours straight in three years and you haven't eaten anything all day. You suddenly notice a mile-high tidal wave curling toward you at 500 miles an hour. What's your first thought?

1. "Oooo, PRETTY!"
2. "RUN RUN RUN!"
3. "OMIGOD! WE'RE ALL GONNA DIE!!"
4. "Mm, wave."

The answer, of course, is obvious to any parent who's had the duty for too long. Sounds callous, but once that callus is firmly in place, you can hear crying and screaming for days and days, be barfed on and hit in the head with ejecta, see poop fly through the air (and all over your precious belongings), pick up 10,000 toys and be largely unaffected, because you're officially Da-da Braindead. Welcome! Da-da's always at the meetings.

Feels so good when it stops hurting.

Strange Things Taken at Face Value

Da-da's not sure why -- or IF -- having children causes a large percentage of people to become... well, NUMB to just about everything that happens in the world. Speaking as one who discovered latent superhero BARF-CATCHING and ERRANT CAPITALIZING talent quite by accident (can you plan for such a thing?), Da-da must say that nothing fazes him after six years of being A Man Called Dada. So, when Da-da recently cut into a red pepper while making... something, he can't remember... he uncovered: pepper testicles.

It could be a rare two-chambered red-pepper heart lying next to Da-da's santoku, he's not sure: Da-da's only performed about 100,000 pepper-ectomies. But he can safely say that he's never seen such a pair on a vegetable this side of a Monsanto frankenfield. He did find quite a large... uh, protuberance... on a strawberry the other day, but Da-da doesn't think the two are related. The Monsanto Range Safety Recombination Facility, where Da-da gets his vegetables and fruit, was flabbergasted. "This is the first genetic anomaly we've ever heard of!" a clerk ululated, scratching his three small heads.

Oddly enough, Da-da has an applicable tangent to accompany the rampant Peter Piperage. If he may...

This same meal spawned a new drink -- which Da-da badly needed on a Friday after a rafter of Child Meal Insertion Debacles (CMIDs). He'd been working on a cobalt-free, "Dirty Gibson," for some time (with Hendrick's Gin, which has a certain taste that works with onions and veggies), when he added a robust jigger or three of Mr.and Mrs. T's Bold and Spicy Bloody Mary Mix, creating what he calls either, "That Time of the Month," or "Blood of the Vanquished." After Da-da's week, both were apt.

Sorry, no cutesy "Twilight" names come to mind. Anyway, here's the recipe. Into a chilled pint glass, add:

- 2 oz. Hendrick's Gin
- Capful of Dry Vermouth
- Sizeable PLOMP of Mr.and Mrs. T's Bold and Spicy Bloody Mary Mix, which is fabulous
- A Dick Cheney splash of cocktail onion juice
- Squeeze of half-a lime
- 4-200 cocktail onions (Da-da LIKES cocktail onions).

Add half a glass of ice to chilled pint glass. Drop vermouth and gin and lime and onion juice over ice. Top with bloody mary mix and taste. Cowboy up and sip some booze off the top if you need more bloody mary mix.  Drop the onions into a large, pre-chilled martini glass and whomp in the mixture. Don't be gentle. Yield: about two martini-glasses' worth. Garnish with the largest Monsanto red pepper testicles you can find and DRINK, DRINK LIKE THE WIND. Do this and you may actually survive a night of feeding two fickle 40-pound anthropomorphic pirahna. Oh, c'mon, where else can you get a drink recipe AND a genetic aberration?