I went to the doctor yesterday to see what’s up with the nasty cough I’ve had for the last two weeks and heard quite a story from the doc. He asked how things had been going with my allergies and I remembered I had a bad reaction to a sample of singulair he gave me. I told him I thought I was allergic to the allergy med (mmm, irony) and when he asked why I said “well, it make me feel like I was on speed and did something weird to my junk?”. While I panicked and tried to figure out how to say I’ve never taken speed, but I assume that’s how it feels he said, “Uhh, what did it do to your genitals?”. “Oh, it was weird, it was like they shrunk and got hurty”. Now the conversation has spiraled into crazy Seinfeld awkwardness and I just wanted to get away. Oh, did I mention my Mom was there too (she was my ride and I’m still a 10 year-old when I go to the doc)? The end to my awkward panic comes when the doctor (who is very monotone) says “that’s called amok”. “Errr, wha?”. Then he delivers this gem of a story (which I can’t confirm via the interwebs, but it’s still a good one):
Researches discovered a tribe somewhere, called the amok tribe. Some of the men were having delusions that their genitals were shrinking and that made them go crazy and run around doing all kinds of insane things. And now we have the saying, “run amok”.
Hooray for the end to awkwardness, and that’s quite a story. Wikipedia disagrees, but I don’t think I care. Though, now all I can do is wonder: was he saying I was imagining my junk hurting and shrinking? That’s not something you make up.