Humour – A serious business

16th June 2019

Dr Lennon’s Sunday Musings…

I would like to talk about a topic that is of utmost importance. It is an extremely serious topic. One that affects everyone and should be a basic part of daily life but sometimes, we forget about it or even worse, neglect it.

This topic is humour.

Sometimes we take life too seriously; we should take humour more seriously. Today, I am going to share a couple of stories in my vet career that has made me laugh from time to time, albeit in exasperation… Enjoy.

When I first came to UK from Singapore almost 2 decades ago, I was a young man fresh out of the military (compulsory National Service in Singapore), hot blooded, brash (being an officer instructor can instil a certain a degree of false sense of confidence in you!). In my first term of Vet College, we were having a debate during Ethics lesson. We were debating the topic of euthanasia and overtreatment, etc. Regardless, I was in charge of presenting our teams’ stand. I supposed I was selected either because no one else wanted to do it or I appeared to be game for anything. It is really hard to say.

Either way, I found myself giving a 10 minute presentation to a group of 40 in my class. I spoke with confidence, with purpose, displayed all the presentation techniques I have acquired in my leadership course in the army and delivered the points that we had discussed in the past hour. I could feel the room keeping still, hanging onto my every word. Thoughtful glances were riveted on me. “I got them!” I thought. “I am invincible!” I was feeling good. I was feeling high. “This is how it is done.” I thought to myself.

So imagine my horror and embarrassment when I sat down and nudge my team mate beside me and asked, “So, what do you think about that?” She replied, “Sorry, Lennon, I had no idea what you had just said. I did not understand a single word!” In my mind, I was articulating with finesse. The reality was that no one understood my heavy Singapore accent, especially with the incredible speed which I spoke with (normal for Singaporeans to speak fast!). I was aghast and mortified! I wanted to hide under the table and leave the room at the same time (I was not sure which was better!).

The worst part was, our point still needed to be made! So, my friend, Matt, had to take up the challenge and present the same speech again but in a much more readily-understood Welsh accent. The horror! My friends, even up to now, tell me that was one of the funniest things they had experienced. I see the humour in it but it is really tough when you are the star in the comedy!

This other story is a bit interesting, depending on your humour and perspective. I must apologise if it offends anyone right now.

So, as we know that in veterinary medicine, it is not uncommon for us to improvise. It is one thing where medical science caters for us, humans and actually produces products that are usually fit (not always!) for use. However, when it comes to our non-human friends, we have to improvise.

A situation that occasionally happens when dealing with snakes is that some owners choose to use a heat rock or a heat mat as a heat source for our legless friends. It is not uncommon when the heat source is too high and the snake lies on it and for whatever reason, does not get off it, they can suffer thermal burns on the ‘belly’ part of the body. It can be just a bit or it can quite extensive, sometimes even the entire length of the snake. So, a method of treating the skin is to apply flamazine (silver) on the affected area. The tricky thing is to be able to keep the ointment in place which can be a challenge considering the snake slithers on its belly! This is where it gets a bit interesting.

A technique is to get a condom (clean of course) and cut off the end so it is like a tube. You can then slide the cut condom over the snake with flamazine inside on the affected area and place sticky clinical tape at both ends. The result is that the affected areas will be protected with the condom with the medication inside and not leak out. So, with an extremely goal orientated objective in mind that makes so much sense in so many ways, the challenge lies in trying to explain this to a customer keeping a straight face…

As you can imagine, it is not often you get advice from a vet that tell you to get a condom and use it in a novel method! With that, comes all the other connotation and deviation that the advice can go, like advice for a larger snake is to get a larger condom possibly reserved for a specific ethnic, etc! Either way, this advice does come with its merits of humour. Have you ever tried to explain to someone how to use a condom in a novel way? It was fairly interesting when I had to explain it to the snake owner in a busy waiting room! We did turn several heads to our direction… Conversations around a dinner table that include ‘a condom for your snake’ has never such great effect!

Let’s remind ourselves to laugh. It is a childhood gift that we had forgotten. I find the simplest and most effective humour is to laugh at ourselves. It is free, it is therapeutic and it is essential in the world we live in.

Share and like this to anyone who needs a laugh.

Comment below your funniest finest moment…🤣😂😁😊😛😋😝🤪😜🐍

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