It’s possible that journalists, rather than the hospital, pieced together the story. Or that it previously became public by some other means.
This does, however, remind me of a story told by a relative who works in a hospital: faced with a patient inexplicably entangled with a pair of handcuffs which had become stuck (and we’re not talking wrists), they resorted to calling out the fire bridage to tackle (ahem) the situation with metal-cutting equipment. It later became clear that firemen don’t have quite the same approach to confidentiality…‘sold to the highest bidder’ is the only way to describe the end result.
I did something similar, walking forward while pulling a door towards me, I caught it with me foot - it sprung closed, then bounced back at my still-travelling forehead, and took out a chunk of flesh perfectly central and horizontal. Not many people believed me.
Oo, I nearly did that to myself. Got distracted by something in the yard while opening the car door, turned my head back to the car as I was getting in, and clocked myself in the outer corner of my eye with the pointy bit of the car door frame. I said I was so glad that I didn’t have a black eye because I’d have had “walked into a door” as the actual reason.
Worse yet, those who’d believe you would start wondering if you need to wear a helmet for just walking around in daily life, because you’re such a klutz. :smack:
I would like to take this opportunity to recommend that GorillaMan, Ferret Herder, JSexton’s friend, and Bayard’s wife remain clothed at all times and never turn their backs on any potatoes that may be laying about.
On the other hand, an unpeeled potato has eyes. So maybe the point is to fantasize about a voice echoing from your anus: “I’m looking at you from the in-si-i-i-i-i-ide!”
A potato seems of an appropriate shape and smoothness to be easily pooped out the next time he got the urge. I wonder why the vicar didn’t just wait for nature to take its course rather than enduring the humiliation of going to the doctor.
I’m sure it was all a missunderstanding - the vicar intended to get a Prince Albert up the orifice, confused his royalty, and got a King Edward instead.
The vicar brings a new meaning to “potato masher”.
I empathize with his plight, however. In the words of The Bard,
HAMLET: Tuber, or not tuber – that is the question:
Whether ‘tis nobler in the mind to suffer
The slings and arrows of outrageous fortune
(“A million to one, doc – a million to one!”)
Or to take arms against a sea of troubles
By taking one’s sorely cucumbered rear hence to
Thine nearest emergency room, and thus end them.
To die of mortifying ill-fame in the Daily Post and Mail,
To sleep under general anaesthesia –
Or at the very least a good shot o’ the local, plus an oxy
Or two – no more – and by a sleep to say we end
The heartache, and the thousand natural shocks
That flesh is heir to from way below the belt,
When one’s natural inclination ‘tis be a perverse
Ass-freak. ‘Tis an earthy consummation
Devoutly to be wished. To die, to sleep –
To sleep – perchance to dream: ay, there’s the rub,
With the sparing comforts of neither oils nor lube,
For in that sleep of death what dreams may come
When we have shuffled off this mortal coil,
Must give us pause. There’s the respect
That makes calamity of so long life, tho
Th’ papparrazi would not towards one so show.
For who would bear the whips and scorns of time,
Th’ oppressor’s blogs, the proud man’s message board
The pangs of despised love, the law’s delay,
The tabloids’ japes and rumors’ relay,
The insolence of office, and the spurns
That NHS patient merit of th’ unworthy takes,
When he himself might his quietus make
With a bare bodkin (most carefully aimed
At said tuber)? Who would fardels bear,
To grunt and sweat under a weary life,
With mere vegetal matter, or a dreary wife,
But that the dread of something after death,
For even a vicar must fear loss o’ breath,
The undiscovered country, from whose bourn
No traveller returns, puzzles the will,
And makes us rather bear those ills we have
Than fly to others that we know not of?
Thus conscience does make cowards of us all,
And thus the native hue of resolution
Is sicklied o’er with the pale cast of thought,
And enterprise of great pitch and moment
With this regard their currents turn awry
And lose the name of action. – Soft you now,
The fair Idaho! – Nugget, in thy besmudged
Orisons be all my sins remembered.
