We have a family friend that has done so many funny, ridiculous things in his life that it would take a book to chronicle all of them. I’ve known him (we’ll call him Ed) all my life, but my husband didn’t meet him till after we’d been dating for a few months. I kept telling Chris these stories about things Ed has done, and he thought that surely this guy must be loose a few screws. He’s really not – Ed is very intelligent, successful, has a great family, and is a good person. He’s just goofy and does stuff that most normal human beings never would!

I thought I would share some of these stories, starting with the one involving an x-ray…

Ed had hurt his foot. He was probably going to need surgery, which he wasn’t looking forward to at all. He went to see a local orthopedic surgeon (also a close family friend) to get his opinion. Yep – surgery it is. He had a baseline x-ray taken of the injured foot, then was scheduled to come back.

When Ed came in for a follow-up visit, he was told that he would need another x-ray to compare to the baseline, just so that they could see how things were progressing. So, he goes into the x-ray room and sweet talks and cajoles the x-ray tech, eventually convincing her to take the x-ray of the uninjured foot! The doctor is a family friend, he reminds her, and it’ll be a great joke 😉 He convinces her (because he can really talk a person into doing just about anything), she takes the x-ray, puts it in the folder, and both he and the film go back to the exam room.

He sits on the exam table, waiting for the doctor to come back. Doctor comes in, says, “Lets take a look”, and puts the x-ray on the viewing screen. Ed doesn’t say a word 🙂 The doctor looks and looks, squints, cocks his head, and generally looks quite confused. Ed gets off the table, asks, “What is it, doc?” and takes a look at the film.

“It’s a miracle!” says Ed, “I’m cured!” Meanwhile, the poor doctor is getting very confused – where did the injury go? “Praise the Lord!”, says Ed. Suddenly, the doctor realizes – wait a minute… this is Ed. Ed is known for playing tricks on people… hang on… this is the wrong foot! “ED!”, he yells, “You’re gonna pay for this x-ray, I hope you know!” But he can’t help laughing. After all, it was pretty funny 🙂