John, Paul, George, and Ring-u

Happy New Year, everyone. No, I didn't make any resolutions. Can we move on now?

My mother turned another year older last week. Guess which Beatles song she won't be listening to this year.

There's a great little Japanese joint in San Mateo called Izakaya Mai, a place so authentically Japanese that English is still a bit of a novelty to all the servers. Imagine a Japanese beer hall that also serves sake and really great food - that's an izakaya. My mom and sister frequent this place, and I always try to tag along when the opportunity presents itself. (The food is fantastic, but that's not why I go. I go because of the toy train running along the ceiling all around the restaurant.)


Being the night right before Christmas eve, the place was jam-packed with drunken business associates celebrating the start of their long weekend. The only seating my family could get was at the bar. That was fine by me, because it was conveniently situated right in front of the TV. Perfect - I could enjoy a bowl of really good ramen while watching Big Ben and his Steelers (or insert any team except the Niners) destroy the hapless Panthers.

Instead, we were subjected to a strange Japanese sorta talk-game-show program. (Then again, since when are Japanese shows NOT strange?) Scenes of puppies doing stupid tricks and reaction shots of celebrity guests' facial expressions of shock and awe blurred before my eyes as I enjoyed my champon. I half-expected this to pop up at any minute:

The next program, however, captured my attention so much that my sister's sneaky chopsticks took a piece of sushi from right under my nose, and I didn't even flinch. It was yet another Japanese talk show, but this time the host was a doctor in scrubs, pimping the hell out of four very scared-looking medical students on a single case involving a woman and breast cancer.

[Medical Slang 1A, Lecture 1: According to Urban Dictionary, pimping is "the act of singling one person of the group and and testing their knowledge by asking a series of intense, difficult questions in front of everyone." SRS and I discussed the etymology of the term and decided that, similar to how a pimp belittles his hoes, an attending physician asks ludicrous questions to medical interns to embarrass them. The only difference is that the attending physician doesn't have to collect money or physically beat anybody. It turns out that our conclusion was horribly wrong. Super old-school British physician William Harvey - like, 1600s old - is credited with originating this usage of the term "pimping." This will be on the midterm.]

I looked up at the screen and saw a familiar cartoon diagram of the breast split into quadrants. I couldn't understand the majority of the question that popped up on the screen, but the one thing I did know how to read was the big yellow "75%" in the sentence. I made the immediate and arrogant assumption that the doctor was asking which quadrant of the breast saw 75% of breast cancers. Really, I didn't even know if they were discussing breast cancer at all, but since this was something I had just learned for the exam we had taken only five days prior, it couldn't have possibly been anything else. For one evening, the world revolved around me and me alone, birthday girls present be damned.

How my wild guess was spot-on, I'll never know. But I do know that I got that question correct on the exam and that I beat out two of the four students on the TV.

The next series of images showed another breast and then a massive arrow pointing from one breast to the other. Again, I didn't know what the question was, but I assumed it asked about the path that cancer takes when spreading from one breast to the other.

Parasternal Lymph Nodes. Big money big money no whammies no whammies STOP.

As if it were a sign from a power above, the correct answer popped up on the screen...in ENGLISH. (And no, it didn't say "palastahnal leemph-u nodu.") Wait, I got it right? And I didn't even know what they were asking? I had to stop eating, I was so damn giddy. Have you ever felt your ego literally inflate in twisted ways in seconds, like the balloon animal that an unfortunate clown hired for a kid's birthday party is legally required to make? Yeah, that was my pompous ass for a brief second. Pimp away, middle-aged-doctor-in-scrubs-with-very-kind-gentlemanly-eyes. You ain't got nothin' on me.

If only I had done that well on the actual exam.