Stupid questions definitely do exist

It has been said there are no stupid questions. This is a fallacy.

There ARE stupid questions. Largely stupid people you’ll never meet necessitate them, and the stupid people that made the question mandatory generally do not include the person doing the asking.

Case in point would be some of the questions medical personnel are sometimes required to ask. Now, questions like, “How did you get that black eye?” with numerous follow-up questions make perfect sense. After all, mostly people get black eyes through some sort of altercation or abuse—the excuse of “I walked into a door” or “I fell off the swing” gets heard a lot, but those sort of accidents rarely result in a black eye, no matter how much the victim might wish the injury was an accident instead of intentional.

But other injuries seem pretty straightforward, and asking a lot of questions after the situation has been explained is just plain annoying.

A copperhead snake bit one of my best friends last Friday while he was helping friends move furniture. It was the end of the day, and my buddy, a contractor, had taken off his work shoes and put on sandals. Shortly after dark, he was in a gravel parking lot. He stepped on something “kind of squishy” and was instantly rewarded by what he said felt like a “really big wasp sting.” He looked down just in time to see a small copperhead snake slithering away.

Two puncture wounds on the foot, along with rapid swelling and discoloration, meant an immediate trip to Doylestown Hospital, since the incident happened near Lumberville, in Bucks County.

It started out okay, he said. The first question was the standard, “So, what happened to you?”

“I got bitten by a copperhead snake,” says my buddy.

I guess that’s on the list of injuries that make them pull out the stupid questions, because after that, there are several.

“How do you know it was a snake?” asks the doc, who is presumably a smart guy, having graduated from medical school, and all. Okay, I guess this question is necessary to make sure everyone is on the same page. But you can see where this is going.

“Well, I felt getting bitten, looked down, saw two puncture wounds and saw a copperhead slithering away.”

“How do you know it was a copperhead?” asks the doc, who is beginning to make it painfully apparent he attended medical school in an urban environment, where there are no wild poisonous snakes that bite people. Clearly, this is a scenario he didn’t think he’d ever really deal with outside of a textbook.

Or, perhaps, that he doubts the story behind the injury. Almost as if he’s expecting my buddy to suddenly change his mind and say something like: “Okay, it wasn’t a snake. You got me. I didn’t want to admit it, but I had a run in with a tiny, vampiric leprechaun. That’s really what bit me on the foot. He was trying to suck my blood, and I stepped on him. I know they’re really rare and all, but vampiric leprechauns are really nasty, as you can see from my foot.”

But that’s not how my friend answered; though with a quickly swelling, blackening foot and in some pain, that’s something I’d be sorely tempted to say. However, my buddy was being a good sport, so he bravely continued on.

“Well, I’ve seen them before. I grew up around here. They’re this coppery color...” My buddy goes on to describe what a copperhead looks like, in detail. The one that bit him was pretty small, likely not full grown.

“Would you be willing to look at this book and see if you can identify the snake for us?” asks the staff.

Okay, I understand the need to identify the kind of snake. But I never thought they’d have a “line-up” book of poisonous snakes—it’s actually a very good idea. But when you already know what kind of snake got you, it does seem a waste of time, unless they’re expecting you to say something like, “That’s the snake that bit me, officer, I mean, doctor. After you administer the anti-venom, I’d like to press charges.” I’m guessing they expect you to say something like that when they’ve “got a line on the perp” as they say in so many crime dramas. But this isn’t a crime drama, it’s a medical comedy, or so you’d think, from the conversation.

My buddy didn’t say that. He just IDed the snake, which, funny thing, did turn out to be a copperhead.

I don’t know if he didn’t seem upset enough at getting bitten or what, but the next question?

“So, was this your snake that bit you?”

“No, it wasn’t my snake. I was just walking in a parking lot, and I stepped on it in the dark, and it bit me.”

“Do you keep snakes?

“NO!! I don’t keep snakes. I don’t even like snakes, and I like them even less now. One just bit me, and landed me in the emergency room. I don’t keep snakes. I don’t like snakes. I just want the antidote,” says my buddy.

I guess they finally believed him, because they finally gave him the anti-venom after that.

By the way, with prompt medical treatment, a copperhead bite isn’t so bad, my friend tells me. It hurts for a couple of days, but he was walking on the bitten foot by Sunday. Of course, a small one, probably a baby, bit him.

Still, if one has to be injured, getting bitten by a copperhead just might be less painful than the emergency room conversation it apparently necessitates.

My buddy was lucky—a copperhead bite recently rewarded a Pohatcong, N.J., man with a three-day “medical vacation,” two days of which were spent in intensive care. The hospital he went to, Warren Hills, didn’t have any anti-venom on hand, so he spent his recovery at St. Luke’s in Fountain Hill.

Poor guy, he probably had to have that conversation twice.

(Originally published in The Easton News, August 17, 2006)