Last week, there was a subject that I really should have blogged about, but didn't - indecent exposure perpetrated by my company's intranet. Every once in a while, my company does a feature on one of the employees that is posted on the intranet site. This is the site that I have to log into every time I want to look up someone's phone number. Point being, it's not an obscure corner of the corporate web. When I went there last week I was greeted by the picture you see here, along with a story about an employee that does triathlons for charity, and also cares deeply about corporate "quality". I have pixelated the pic so as to protect the innocent. First thought: total beefcake! Second thought - who submits a picture like that to corporate? I can only hope he didn't know it would be used on the top page. I actually know the guy, and he is super nice. Luckily for him and us, no further triathlon pictures were included, since triathlons are notably rife with biker's spandex and speedos. I knew he was in shape, but I didn't know that he had set the company standard for tricep definition. For some reason, this kind of reminds me of that story Nig tells about Tamsin when she lingered briefly at the Orioles team store in front of a poster of Brady Anderson in compression shorts.

For some reason, the following story has been floating around in my head for some time, so I'm just going to write it.

Monkey Business: Hospital's Loss of Accreditation Could Cost it Millions

Shocked Memorial Hospital officials learned this week that the facility may lose its JCAHO accreditation for admitting and treating a primate in its pediatric care unit earlier this year. Loss of accreditation could cost the hospital millions of dollars in revenue, and precipitate an exodus of top doctors and other clinicians.

The bizarre chain of events that led to the current crisis began 4 months ago during a routine JCAHO inspection of Memorial Hospital's patient care areas. JCAHO inspectors, who normally are on the lookout for wrong-site surgeries and potential medication errors, were inspecting Memorial's pediatric wing when they noted strange sounds coming from one of the recovery rooms. The lead inspector then entered the room, drew back the curtains, and found a 3 year old monkey nicknamed George eating a bowl of ice cream. JCAHO personnel were apparently blunt in their assessment of the situation, saying "you have a monkey in your hospital".

Hospital president Ed Glosser says that the whole fiasco began with an innocent mistake committed by the admitting nurse. Says Glosser "the admitting nurse noticed that George was a monkey, and that he had no last name, but some guy with a yellow hat vouched for him, and let me also point out that George had a social security number". Subsequent investigations show that George did indeed have a social security number from an ill-fated stint as an apartment building window washer. More recently, George has stumbled on a burgeoning acting career, starring in a 98 minute vehicle called "Curious George".

It may have been George's value as an actor that led to his hospital visit in the first place. His caretaker, an eccentric middle-aged bachelor who favors yellow safari outfits, says he was worried sick when George swallowed a wooden puzzle piece. "George is my meal ticket, and I wasn't about to drive another 20 minutes to the vet when I've got a level 3 trauma center right around the corner. Besides, this was his second stay at Memorial. I didn't think they cared that he was a monkey". Hospital records confirm that George was also admitted 15 months ago, a fact corroborated by Glosser - "Yep, he broke his leg, got put in traction for 3 weeks, and then cleaned us out of ether".

JCAHO officials say they have been more vigilant in their search for animal admissions since the "George" incident, and are already investigating two more potential occurrences. An internal JCAHO source (who asked not to be named) said a field goal-kicking donkey named "Gus" had arthroscopic hoof surgery an a Los Angeles area hospital 2 months ago, and that Mr. Ed is currently being treated for severe laryngitis at that same facility.