President Me

by Adam Carolla

  Second, I demand that henceforward all life-support equipment will be coin-operated. I’m not talking about a Beverly Hills parking meter where a quarter gets you eight minutes, but a machine that works long enough to prove you have people who care about you. Why are we all pitching in to keep you around if the people who supposedly love you don’t give enough of a shit to cough up a couple bucks to keep you hanging on? And is that a world you want to stick around for anyway? If your family can’t bring the mason jar that was earmarked for the Coinstar down to the hospital, then there’s no reason for you to bother staying on that ventilator. Just let go. It’s part of my campaign—You Better Hope They Have Change.

  But back to the government ineptitude. Why would we trust the government to create an insurance system when that same government wrote a tax code that’s harder to understand than Bob Dylan reading Dr. Seuss? Has this bureaucratic pig fuck ever proven itself to be efficient or competent?

  Talk to your doctor, or any doctor, and ask if they’re into Obamacare. They all hate it. It reduces their treatment options; it creates a shit ton of extra paperwork, and cuts their compensation. People go through the eight-plus years of medical school and training because it’s supposed to pay off in the end. When you inject the government into that system and reduce the payoff, you’re not going to get the best and brightest. The smart people are going to say, “Feh; I’ll go be a stockbroker instead.”

  Let’s face it—a fair amount of this is due to the lawyers. Mentioning lawyers in front of Dr. Drew is like waving a red beach towel in front of a bull. He goes crazy. Doctors have to carry a massive amount of malpractice insurance now because anyone can sue for anything. I’m not saying someone shouldn’t sue if a doctor sews up your gaping chest wound with the forceps still in there, but no one is willing to take responsibility for their own health. If you gave yourself diabetes or some other ailment, a doctor better fix you up or you’re going to sue him. Why? Because some lawyer told you that you deserve to be compensated for this INJUSTICE and WRONGDOING and Hey, free money, right? But it’s more like he wants to get compensated when the doctor or hospital just settles to avoid the hassle and bad publicity. No one is taking into account that you’re fucking up the life of the guy who tried to save yours or that of your loved one. It’s sad. You hear about the inner city and black-on-black crime . . . well, a lawyer suing a doctor is Jew-on-Jew crime.

  And when the government gets involved, so do the lobbyists and special interests and advocates for every age, race, and gender, which makes everything a complete disaster. Everyone is fighting for their little fiefdom and no one is looking at the big picture, so you end up with some Frankenstein system assembled by committee that attempts to serve everyone but does the exact opposite.

  PUTTING HOSPITALITY BACK IN THE HOSPITAL

  I’m not saying there should be zero regulation of the medical field. As I get older, and my parents get older, I’ve had more interactions with the hospital and thus more shit to complain about, especially when it comes to hospitals.

  I want to address the decorum. The hospital is a depressing place. You’re only there because something has gone horribly awry (with the rare exception of your old lady getting a nice titty lift). So let’s do everything we can to minimize the added depression.

  My dad was in the hospital for an extended period in 2012. Long story short, he fell and hit his head but didn’t really think anything about it. A week or so later he had some trouble with his hand, and when he talked to his doctor, the doctor suggested a CAT scan. Immediately after that test, it was time for emergency brain surgery; there was hemorrhaging and swelling and it needed to be relieved immediately.

  When I got to the hospital and was attempting to find my father’s room after the surgery, I was greeted by the old volunteer. This is one of the first things my Secretary of Health and Human Services is going to do away with. I’m there to see my elderly father, who is probably on his way off of this mortal coil. To be greeted by the guy who’s two steps behind him is a total bummer. I suspect the old volunteers are there to get acclimated to their new environment.

  Plus these guys don’t necessarily have that much hustle. I’m attempting to get to my father’s room before he croaks and you’re guiding me there at a two-step-an-hour pace. Move it, Grandpa.

  I also had a run-in with an insulting security guard on a different trip to the hospital. He recognized me and said, “Hey, I loved the Man Show. What are you up to nowadays?” Before I got a chance to even begin telling him about my Guinness World Record–breaking podcast, the three network pilots, and the two New York Times bestsellers, he jumped in: “Just chillin’? Don’t worry, something will come up.” Thanks, dick. Everyone does this now. They ask you a question and answer it for you a second later. Why are you even asking if you already know the insulting answer? My guess, as always? Schadenfreude. This dick probably wasn’t feeling too great about the life path that led him to manning the security shack at the hospital, so he’s going to take the guy he recognizes as a celebrity and try to knock him down a peg.

  A day or two later my father took a turn for the worse: he had a heart attack and had to be resuscitated. At a certain point I got the call from my stepmother saying they called the priest to administer the last rites. You don’t need a medical degree to know that’s bad. So I headed down to the hospital again, with my friend Ray, who has been like a second son to my dad (why he needed a second son when he barely wanted the first one I’m not sure), to say good-bye. We got into his room and found him hooked up to a thousand hoses and ventilators, including one that drained and dripped various disgusting bodily fluids into a clear plastic container.

  This is another quick fix my Health and Human Services secretary can make—from now on we will have crocheted body-fluid-container cozies. I really don’t need to see the shit leaking out of my decrepit dad into crystal-clear Tupperware.

  I held my dad’s hand, kissed him on the forehead, freed the family moths that had for years been trapped in his wallet, and made my peace with it. Eventually the bleak prognosis gave way to cautious optimism and then to hope. They began moving my father progressively into less and less important rooms—from the ICU to the recovery unit to a regular room. Eventually he was in a van in the parking lot.

  This all took place at a high-end hospital in Pasadena, California. I’m convinced that in a lesser facility he would have died. From the outside this place looks like a luxury resort. Which makes the next part all the more tragic.

  After being led to the elevator by Grandpa Walton, I pressed the button for my dad’s floor and looked up at the digital readout and this is what I saw.

  Some shithead gangbanger had taken a drywall screw and carved his gang signs into the smoked Plexiglas cover. This is why L.A. is the most depressing place in the world. Again, this is not County USC hospital in downtown L.A., this was a nice hospital in Pasadena.

  Then when I got upstairs I had to use the bathroom. The toilet-paper dispenser, paper-towel dispenser, the toilet seat, and even the underside of toilet seat were all carved up. This cholo assholo took the time to lift the toilet seat just in case someone from a rival gang wanted to claim the underside of the shitter saddle.

  Where is the humanity? Where is the decency? The people are using this bathroom because someone they love is down the hall clinging to life. When they’re not wringing their hands they’re sanitizing their hands. But fear not, that dispenser has been tagged up too.

  When I went to visit my dad a few days later, I was in the same tagged-up elevator with a Mexican gangbanger—maybe the cousin of the guy who scratched it up. He was wearing baggy pants and a tight wife-beater which exposed a shoulder tattoo of a bandito pointing a six-shooter at me. You’ve got people in extreme stress at hospitals. Why is this guy allowed to further traumatize people with his shoulder tats? What if you walked by a room with a mom inside who was watching her kid, just nailed in a drive-by, cling to life?

  This is what you
wear to the hospital to visit your beloved relative or homie? Is nowhere sacred? Do we not have a dress code anymore? Can you wrap your junk in foil? Cover your cock and balls in a Crown Royal sack? Is that acceptable attire? Have we fallen this far? This is not the Black Hole in Raider Nation or an airport in Haiti with a chicken running around. This is a hospital where people go to say good-bye to their elderly loved ones and to read to their seven-year-olds with leukemia.

  When I got off the elevator on my dad’s floor, I needed a hit off the drinking fountain. (On the drive to the hospital that day I was sipping a Starbucks and had a little coffee mouth going.) As I leaned down into the drinking fountain I took an inhale before I started sipping and smelled something I haven’t smelled since my high school baseball-playing days—a large wad of Copenhagen chewing tobacco in the drain.

  This was four and half feet from the men’s room containing a toilet and garbage can. Yet some dick decided to deposit his chaw here instead.

  This is the height of narcissism. We don’t recognize the existence of other human beings. The only thought is “I have tobacco in my mouth and I need to get rid of it.” In fact, they probably think they are giving you a gift. That tobacco came from His Royal Highness’s jowls, and you should be honored to whiff it when you attempt to drink from the fountain. Do you think the animal that committed this atrocity would do it in his own home? Of course not. In my America we will check the security-camera footage and find this asshole. If he was there visiting a relative who was on life support, we’re pulling the plug. Say good-bye to Nana. You blew it, fucko.

  It’s not just the patients at the hospital that need a little decorum coaching. The nurses and doctors could use a refresher course on bedside manner. They’re all a little too casual lately.

  I had to get a physical to renew my vintage racing license a year or two ago and that involved a urine specimen. The nurse was very casually handling the cup of my frothy wiz and was making small talk while she dunked test strips and separated it into other containers. I know she does this on a regular basis, but I’m not really used to people playing with my piss.

  The fact that she was attractive didn’t help. If she had twenty more years and forty more pounds on her, it might be fine, but the fact that she was young and hot made it uncomfortable and semi-erotic for me. I’m positive there are Japanese businessmen that would pay for this service. I wanted to say, “You’re too good-looking for this. Send it to the squatty Guatemalan chick in the lab.”

  It was nice when she was done and dumped it down the sink, thus vindicating my much-questioned practice of pissing in the sink at home. See, honey? I told you it was okay.

  Another incident was when I had arthroscopic knee surgery in 2011. I had a torn meniscus that needed to be repaired, so before the surgery I needed a(nother) general physical.

  I was sitting on the edge of the table with butcher paper, filling out the health questionnaire with my doctor. She was asking me all the questions about history of heart disease, hepatitis, traumatic brain injury, etc. Then she got to the part about drinking. She asked, “Do you drink?” I replied yes. She asked how often. I stammered for a bit: “Hmm, let’s see, it’s Tuesday now, so . . . um, every day.” That got a look followed by, “How much?” I told her two glasses of wine a night. (Replace “glass” with “Viking helmet.”)

  Then she moved on to ask, “Do you smoke?” I replied. “No. Well, not really. Only when I drink.”

  As she started to lecture me about how I should cut back, I noticed I was staring at this:

  The picture on her wall was of the world’s most famous alcoholic holding a drink and a cigar. Of course I had to comment on it. She confirmed my crazy hypervigilance by saying, “I’ve had that picture up for eight years and no one has ever said a word about it.”

  Then I noticed that on the adjoining wall was a similar caricature picture of the Marx Brothers. I said to her, “Why don’t you switch them so as you berate people about booze and cigarettes, they’re not staring at a guy who smoked like a chimney and has a nice gin blossom on his nose.” Her reply to that question was even more confounding than the previous one. She said, “Well, the Marx Brothers one is on that wall because that’s the direction people face when I’m giving the rectal exam,” then after a quick pause adding, “They seem to enjoy it.”

  I assured her that no one enjoys anything while they’re getting a digit dropped in them. There has never been a person who was thinking, “Gee, that Harpo sure was funny in Duck Soup” while you’re cramming your index finger in their ass.

  Ugh. I’ve just recently hit the age where the prostate exam is required. This has provided ample opportunity for the doctor to be supercasual in what is a very sensitive moment. At my first prostate exam the doctor said, “Now it’s time to drop the shorts and bend over the table,” followed by, “I know you know how this goes.” No. No I don’t. I’m a straight male and I’ve done no time in the joint. I do not know how having something shoved up my ass feels. And why the small talk? There is no patter that is going to make this moment any less uncomfortable and traumatic to me. There is nothing you can say to prepare me for this. In fact, if you could just hit me in the back of the skull with a sock full of nickels and wake me up when it’s over, that’d be great.

  This brings me to dentistry . . .

  DENTAL HEALTH IS RUINING

  MY MENTAL HEALTH

  I’d prefer to be knocked out for any and all dentistry. In fact, if you could knock me out for the week leading up to it, that would be awesome. And I will make my Department of Health and Human Services make this a reality. It’s necessary.

  The evolution of anesthesia in dentistry has gone from “here’s a rag soaked in rum, suck on it” to a Novocain shot that hurts worse than the procedure, to “laughing gas which keeps you awake but fucked up enough that we could pull the teeth and molest you a little bit and you’d be cool with it.” But the next step is darting people without them knowing it. The “dread the whole week before the root canal on Friday” is the worst part. I want to make it possible so that while you’re out to dinner with the wife, enjoying Red Lobster, you just feel a quick sting in your neck, pass out in your bisque, and wake up with gauze in your mouth and someone informs you that your wisdom teeth are now removed.

  I do love me some nitrous, though. Me and Vin Diesel are the two greatest consumers of noz. I was at the dentist and asked for the nitrous and the dick said, “You don’t really need it.” I replied, “Yeah, but I want it.” He then doubled down on the dickitude, saying, “I had an eight-year-old girl in this chair doing the same procedure and she didn’t need it.” To this I replied, “Good for her. She’s a hero. Now hit me.” Nitrous is yummy. It makes you feel good, but it can fuck with you if you get caught in the wrong circumstance. I had a root canal once and needed the nitrous. This dentist had the CD player and headphone set up so you could listen to music while he did the procedure. Unfortunately his selection was a little thin. I ended up having to listen to the Manhattan Transfer Christmas album. This was in Burbank, in August. It’s beyond weird listening to Christmas music when it’s 109 degrees out and you’re high as a kite on N2O.

  I also want to force a change in the novelty tooth-polish flavors. Getting your teeth cleaned at the dentist is essentially having an air compressor running a minisander rubbing pumice into your teeth. It sounds like hell and makes my hair stand up on end. Why do you think the fact that wild-mountain-berry flavor toothpaste is going to make it okay? Shouldn’t it just be toothpaste-flavored? And don’t give me that shit where “a lot of people like that.” They just say that because you’re holding a sharp electric instrument in their mouth. Unless they want to reenact the scene from Marathon Man, they’re going to tell you what you want to hear.

  We just don’t need the novelty flavors. I like piña colada, but I’m at the dentist, not a Jimmy Buffett concert. It’s about the context. I also like brisket and pussy, but not when they’re mixed with sand and ground into m
y teeth.

  The thing that drives me most nuts is the fact that when I bring up these simple solutions and fixes to my health care professionals, I’m usually greeted with a blank “never thought of that” stare followed by no action, or worse, “Yeah, we could do that but we don’t.” A nice dental example of this phenomenon follows.

  I was at the dentist for a cleaning and was complaining about the icy-cold water they spray on your bleeding gums and battered teeth after they’ve gotten done cleaning/raping your mouth. The dentist has taken a very sensitive area, made it more sensitive by poking and prodding at it with sharp metal implements, and then they spray it down with a miniature version of the hose they used to clean up Rambo in First Blood. I said to the dentist, “You know what you guys should create? An in-line water heater, something that will warm up the water before you squirt it on my vulnerable teeth.” He gave the infuriating answer of “Oh yeah, they have those.” Okay. Then why don’t YOU have one, asshole? You know the technology exists, you know it would make your patients’ experience better, thus increasing your business, but more importantly it would just be the humane thing to do. Why not? Well, since I’m president now, this equipment will forever more be standard in any licensed dentist office.

  And since I’m mandating around the mouth, let me throw in this last one for all the female dental hygienists reading this. From now on, when the subject of the BJ comes up in the bedroom, there are no more excuses. You spend your entire day sucking stuff out of strangers’ disgusting oral cavities. You can’t act grossed out when your man wants a smoothie.

  MY ORGAN DONATION NATION