General Brahmachapatti has been in Ruby Hall Clinic for a couple of weeks for a minor operation. The nurses are fed up with him. He is always complaining about the food and the service, waking up the nurses in the middle of the night, demanding cups of hot chocolate, and so on. One morning a nurse comes into his room and says, “Good morning, general. Please take down your pyjamas and turn over — I need to take your temperature.”
“But nurse,” protests the general, “I always have the thermometer in my mouth, not my ass. Why this change?”
“This morning,” explains the nurse, “we need a really accurate temperature, so that the lab can make an analysis.”
The general grumpily agrees, takes down his pyjamas, turns over, and raises his bum in the air.
“Now, general,” says the nurse, making the insertion, “this is a special thermometer and it needs to be left quite a long time to get an accurate result. So don’t move until I come back.”
In the next few hours many people come into the general’s room, but all of them just gasp and leave quickly in embarrassment. Finally, the general’s wife comes to visit him. She walks in and stares at him in amazement, not knowing what to say.
“What is the matter with you, woman?” thunders the general. “Haven’t you ever seen someone having their temperature taken before?”
“Yes, darling, I have,” stammers his wife, “but not with a banana!”