Humor in Science and Theology

That’s me when I am trying to explain what I think is wrong with my car to my brother-in-law who repairs cars for a living.

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Learning the anatomy and jargon of something definitely helps. I also know nothing about cars. If it says it takes 30 minutes to fix I know it will take me 2 hours. I have tried to fix my vans back doors multiple times over two years. I also rig it to half working. I have spent at least 30 hours and $250 total over the last two years to fix it. It’s now broken again. Originally I was quoted $200 labor and parts to fix it and that it would be 100% fixed and fixed correctly. Few days ago I went back to the same places and because of two years of inflation, a pandemic and not enough employees and prices going up for parts because of truck drivers and manufacturing plants having strikes and issues it’s now $450 to fix it labor and parts.

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Check out the propellant: :grin:

Yep, It is subject to abuse, and they will card you at Wal Mart when you buy it. There have even been a few deaths where kids filled plastic bags with it and suffocated.

That’s not funny, but not entirely surprising, either. :confused:

That is no laughing matter …

:wink:

Having caught up with the other comments I see it really can be a problem. My only experience with it was getting out my wisdom teeth. I received the laughing gas, truth serum and local anesthetic. I was so outside myself I can remember deciding how much force I should apply to facilitate extractions. A thoroughly third person perspective to the proceedings.

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The docs may correct me, but I think it is still in routine use in ORs, too, as part of the anesthesiologist’s (or nurse anesthetist’s) toolkit, so maybe you have had unwitting experience with it, as well.

Properly used and monitored, it is really quite safe. OB used to use it as self administered, with the idea that if you got too much you would drop the mask. Dentists still use it a lot, as satirized in Little Shop of Horrors.

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It is still used in the OR then?

It has been awhile since I’ve looked at a anesthesia cart, but last I did, it was not used very often. It may still be available for conscience procedures to take the edge off, but it does not really work for general anesthesia unless mixed with other gases and IV drugs. I understand it may be used in combination some with those. They usually go with other administration devices other than whipped cream cans, except for colonoscopies, where the whipped cream facilitates insertion of the colonoscope.

(This is the humor thread, right? Just trying to get back on topic)

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You just reminded me that colonoscopies have a communicable side effect: TMI. :slightly_smiling_face:

Please recall that one of the early superspreader events was a choir practice, so masking is advised.

Variants of this picture always make me chuckle.

The first version I saw:

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Has this one been shared here?
image

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Occasionally, but not too much anymore. There are a few medical conditions and/or specific surgery situations where N2O is a bad idea. There are also newer drugs the last couple decades such that the prior advantages of N2O as part of an anesthetic plan are increasingly obsolete.

ETA; There was a song called “Whip It” that was a big hit for the punk rock band Devo, circa 1980. IIRC, the general feeling back then was that the song was about doing hits of the N2O propellant from a whipped cream can. I think that’s what it’s still called if you do such a thing.

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It’s been a long time since I’ve paid attention to an anesthesia cart in an OR. Although I used to work on equipment in them, the only ORs I’ve been in for the last few decades have been when I’ve gotten there on a gurney. :slightly_smiling_face:

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I think the best jokes are those directed at the real world forcing a look at reality.

“ covid-19 patient’s chances at getting a ventilation machine is based on chances of survival or as victims feel the value of their life “

I told that to a older guy in his 70s who already had a stroke that was ranting about why he refuses to get vaccinated and if we maskers are scared of Covid we should just stay home.

He did not get the joke and so I told him given that we are still a red zone with hospitals often maxed out at the moment if he did catch covid he would most likely be hit hard and they would just send him home because the bed is better reserved for someone who has a higher chance of surviving. This is a dude who is still doing electrical work and his wife died from covid sometime last year.

What did get him upset was me asking him how did he manage to make it to 70. Seriously you would think him of all people would be aware of what it can do.