Hospital Test: Kill Me Now
Sometimes I’m just about to get into bed and I suddenly remember, “Hey, I have this thing called a daily blog!” Tonight was one of those nights. (One of these nights I’m going to forget, which is a good reason to write earlier in the day.)
So what now? Rip off a mangy piece about the hungry dogs of fear again? Or dig six feet deeper into that death (warmed over) topic once more? No, I think I’ll just share one of my classrooms from today. After all, I can’t imagine anyone comes here for the metaphysics (yawn), can they? That’s right, I didn’t think so.
Today I had to make a visit to the hospital for a “test”. Ulp! One that would be performed… on me. Which (the word perform) reminds me that people in Australia call the operating room “theatre”. So do the doctors there go “on stage” then? I’m not sure I’d be comfortable with that. Maybe you’d get a comedian. “I’m not a real doctor, I just play one in the operating theatre.”
Anyhow, as I drove toward the hospital I felt okay about my test, but admittedly that might have been due to the fact it was an easy test. It’s not like it was an emergency visit, AKA a pop quiz, and it didn’t involve anything metal or cold, nor would anyone have been arrested if it happened on a street corner. Ok, actually, that’s not true. On further thought there would be multiple arrests for indecency, assault, and public whimpering.
Before I arrived, I turned the corner and there it was, looming monstrously before me: the monolith of pain and death. The hos-pit-al. Emphasis on the pit. Of my stomach. It’s not a fun place, these impersonal ante-chambers to hell. Walking toward the front doors, that threshold between the outside world and the inner sanctum of smarmy smells, I felt like I should have been wearing a sign around my neck: I’ve Got Problems (That They Need To Test For).
It didn’t matter, my false bravado said it for me. Once inside, I tried to smile graciously, generously!, at an old lady with a walker, but after her “Don’t-try-any-of-that-funny-business-with me-young-man” glare, I quickly found myself looking down at my shoes the rest of the way to the reception desk. If I had a tail, it would have been tucked.
When I finally went in and was laid out on the table (half-NAKED!), I thought it would be polite to stare up at the ceiling tiles as quizzically as possible, as if I truly saw something of interest up there. Patterns amongst the dots only I could detect. Soon a technician quietly entered the room, first her shadow, then she herself hovering over me like the Grim Reaper sans the clumsy hood, and I suddenly worried I might blurt out something unexpected to jumpstart the conversation and relieve the tension. Maybe something terrible, like, “Shouldn’t we have dinner first?” Or, “May I request a chaperone?” Or, even worse; I start reciting chapter one of the Course from memory. Or, worser; something inappropriately metaphysical. “Hi there. I’m not really sick, or even a person, I’m just playing one in my split mind. Hehehehehe… OUCH!!”
