Hospitals Are For Ugly People
I never belonged in a hospital…but I’ve been
I understand that hospitals are necessary places. Carol is a nurse, so I know all about hospitals. But that doesn’t mean I gotta like ’em.
Hospitals are filled with ugly people. This is not a generalization. This is a fact. I am not an ugly person, but once I check in as a patient…I become ugly. I have never once said to myself, “Boy, I could sure go for that babe with the tube sticking out of her arm dragging along a bag of clear liquid hoisted on a rolling metal pole.”
I have been in a hospital elevator with a very sick man who was still in a bed on rollers! Why?!
Don’t hospitals have separate “sick people who can’t get out of bed” elevators?
And if not…why not?
There was that time I had to get a CT scan. I’m not sure what that is except that they take a picture of your brain in a loud machine. For that to happen, they have to inject dye into your bloodstream. For that to happen, they have to use a needle.
I don’t like needles.
I checked into the department and the nurse at the check in counter told me to have a seat. I looked around and people were sitting in the hallway.
Ugly People.
I have had many experiences waiting among people who were going to audition for a television commercial. They were not ugly people. These were ugly people.
I took a seat, and tried to make myself very small. After a few minutes, I was called into a small room where a nurse injected a needle into my arm, and she kept the needle there! On the end of the needle was a plastic thing that a tube could be placed. “That’s it?” I asked.
“Go back out there and wait for your name to be called,” Nurse Ratched said.
So, now I’m not only sitting with the Ugly People. I am an Ugly People. I sat with other Ugly People with the same plastic thing sticking out of their arms. Panic had stricken me. I called my daughter, Samantha.
I whispered loudly into the phone. “Sam! I’m an Ugly People!”
“You’re in the hospital?” She and I had discussed this topic before.
I waited there for three days. It might have been only an hour. They hadn’t called my name, yet. I walked into Nurse Ratched’s little room and said calmly, “Listen…I know it’s not your fault and you have no control over it…but if they don’t call my name in five minutes…I’m leaving.”
“You can’t leave.”
“Actually…I can.”
“They haven’t called your name, yet.”
“Five minutes.”
I went back out to my chair to join my fellow Ugly People. I did the only childish thing I could think of doing. I called Carol, who was working that evening.
I told her the entire situation, and that I was leaving in five minutes. She said she’d be right there. She appeared out of the elevator and brought me to the nurse at the front desk.
She explained that her husband was a spoiled child, and could she do her a favor and get me in there quickly.
Four minutes later, my name was called. No, I was not embarrassed.
There’s more to the story, that will be for another time. The important lesson is…I escaped the Ugly People.
I hope this served to be as much as an adventure for you as it was for me.
