Entertainment

My husband and I were returning home from our childbirth class at Manhattan's Beekman Hospital.

Noting my obvious pregnancy, the taxi driver, a Mr. Ho, proceeded to tell us about his wife's experience at the same hospital. She had been admitted one December 24 and the next day delivered triplets.

Visitors and staff were amused Christmas morning when they saw the newborns in the nursery and read the names on the three bassinets:

Ho, Ho, Ho.

If lawyers are disbarred and clergymen defrocked, doesn't it follow that electricians can be delighted, musicians denoted, cowboys deranged, models deposed, and dry cleaners depressed?

Laundry workers could decrease, eventually becoming depressed and depleted! Even more, bedmakers will be debunked, baseball players will be debased, bulldozer operators will be degraded, organ donors will be delivered, software engineers will be detested, the BVD company will be debriefed, and even musical composers will eventually decompose.

On a more positive note, though, perhaps we can hope politicians will be devoted.

A psychiatrist is doing rounds in his hospital with a couple of students.

They look in on one patient and the psychiatrist says to his students, "Sometimes this fellow thinks he's a temptress in a Bizet opera, but today, as you can see from his goose stepping, he thinks he's the World War II head of the Nazi Luftwaffe. What condition do you think he's suffering from?"

The first student replies, "Is he a paranoid schizophrenic with a multiple personality disorder?"

The second student says, "No, I think he just doesn't know whether he's Carmen or Goering."

When a panel of doctors were asked to vote on adding a new wing to their hospital, the allergists voted to scratch it and the dermatologists preferred no rash moves. The gastro-enterologists had a gut feeling about it, but the neurologists thought the administration had a lot of nerve, and the obstetricians stated they were labouring under a misconception.

The ophthalmologists considered the idea short-sighted; the pathologists yelled, "Over my dead body!" while the paediatricians said, "Grow up!"

The psychiatrists thought it was madness; the surgeons decided to wash their hands of the whole thing, and the radiologists could see right through it. The internists thought it was a hard pill to swallow, but the plastic surgeons said, "This puts a whole new face on the matter."

The podiatrists thought it was a step forward, but the urologists felt the scheme wouldn't hold water. The anaesthetists thought the whole idea was a gas, and the cardiologists didn't have the heart to say no.