My Slice-of-Life Stories

Who's the Dummy?

I was in the nursing major's hall one day looking for a syringe to bring home to Conrad so he could fill it with water and squirt it on his dried ink cartridge. I asked one of the head nurses if she had a syringe she could spare. Without a sign of intelligent thought on her face she smiled professionally and said she didn't have one. I beamed back, thanked her anyway and on my way out I thought, "sure you don't have one, I mean this is only the nursing major's hall. It's not like you ever use a syringe in here."

I walked past a few students in white coats surrounding a bed with another student inside. They were practicing some bedside manner thing. It looked like a hospital in there. All the equipment and the whole atmosphere gave me the shivers. I wanted to leave. Besides, they were in the middle of class. On my way out the door I glanced to my left and I almost jumped out of my skin! I struck the offensive object on my left without thinking what it was first. I don't know why I did it! I was in defense mode in that creepy place. My eyes settled more firmly on the object. It was a CPR dummy lying on the table with its eyes and mouth gaping open. Ihh! Sickening!

I shook the adrenaline off and laughed to myself, "Hope nobody saw that."

 

I was suddenly the authority

It's interesting the power and competence people attribute to someone sitting behind a large desk. I was waiting for my advisor to ask him questions about my major and he wasn't in his office. So I sat down behind a huge, vacant secretary desk and studied notes till he returned.

While sitting there I helped four people with their questions. One guy wanted to speak with his advisor, but his he wasn't in. However his door was unlocked. The guy asked for my permission to go in and look at the picture that hung on his advisor's wall. I said, "sure, that's okay." I suggested he leave a note on his advisor's desk. He did. He continued to okay things with me and I finally told him I was just sitting there. Waiting. For my advisor. We said good-bye and on his way out he met his advisor in the hall. When the guy came back to reclaim his note he still made it clear to me what he was doing. I can see how sitting behind a large desk could get to a person's head after a while.

 

Bug Juice in my Eye

Whenever I walk into a doctor's office there's an atmosphere of somberness. Nurses and receptionists generally don't crack smiles unless they're buttering up old people. But I remember one day when I made them all laugh - even the sternest looking one.

It was 15 minutes before closing time and I waltzed in, their last customer. It was the first day of school and one of my eyelids had swollen up just huge. I thought if I ignored it, it would go away, but it only worsened and my face started getting these tiny bumps, making my skin rough and textured.

After I determined what the cause might be I went to the health center. I told the receptionist I thought I was having an allergic reaction. She instantly made me a priority. Turns out the health center doesn't take customers 15 minutes before close, but my words were allergic reaction, so it sounded serious. She got her pen ready to write the name of the medication I was reacting to. And when it wasn't a medicine I explained in brief that I think I got bug guts in my eye.

I had been working in my garden two days earlier and my shovel dug up a bright yellow bug. I picked up the bug and examined it. I had been staring at brown for the last half hour and this bright succulent yellow bug added a little needed color to my activity. It didn't wiggle at all or move its legs. I handled it more and it still didn't move. I determined he was dead. So I closed my fingers tight around him and his insides went outsides, right in my eye! I threw it down poised to run inside but no painful burning began. No blurred vision. So I wiped it out with my sleeve and kept working.

That was my bug story. And the nurses laughed. their serious I've-seen-it-all faces softened. I don't generally like being the laughing stock, but to get a chuckle out of those stiffs I knew it had to be amusing. The doctor saw me, free of charge, and he dismissed the bug story. "There are no poisonous bugs in Idaho," he said. I thought, come on doc not One poisonous bug in All of Idaho. I thought that was far-fetched, but regardless he sent me away with some free samples of Allegra, convinced that it was an allergy problem. I've never had allergies.

I was so amused with myself for making the stiff ones laugh and I didn't worry about my eye. If the doctor wasn't worried I was sure it would clear up.

 

A Nuisant* Cat

Conrad and I were in Houston for one summer living with my parents. I sent Conrad off to work with a kiss, a hug and a great lunch. As I cleaned up the counters my dad woke up and leisurely walked into the kitchen. We exchanged good-mornings as he pulled up the shades. There, sitting on our back porch was the neighbors cat. Like a turd in your morning coffee he took it as an offense to the extreme, and the sight of that cat sent him hurrying to the garage.

The cat had been leaving his wastes in our yard for some time. I knew that. It was one thing my parents talked about now and then, that nusient* cat. I considered what my dad's action would be. "Shooting it with a BB gun would be foolish," I thought. The clock ticked. I silently watched that cat lick himself, and soak up the warm morning. A sudden jerk of his head told me that my dad must have entered the scene. Dad had silently opened the gate, crept around the side of the house and there, on his belly in the morning dew, he aimed his BB gun and shot that cat. The cat rolled over himself and raced up and over the fence in the blink of an eye.

Dad came inside and we talked about that cat. "If I could get one clean shot with a stronger gun." Dad, you can't just shoot a neighbor's cat, I thought. "It would have to be a clean one. I couldn't have him go limping home to its owner." Dad, you can't kill the nieghbor's cat. "Maybe if I had a silencer." Dad, you can't -Mom joined the conversation. Mom voted she didn't want it dead. "Killing it isn't justifiable." But she didn't want poo in her garden either. So they talked about catching it and dropping it off somewhere faaar away.

As the adults were thinking how to catch that cat I considered all the occasions I'd spent petting it in my teenage years before college. It's a good cat. Lets you rub its belly. Very tame. Better than most cats even. I'd always looked at the cat at as a welcome guest in the past. I never saw any poo to be annoyed by.

Now the cat's got it in for my dad. He knows his work scedule and everything. (image taken from endless internet library)

I listened to the adults, not taking either side. Finding it somewhat laughable the way they carried on. I considered what they could do to keep the cat out of the yard. It comes to our yard because there are dogs in all the other yards. "Hey dad maybe you should get a dog," but that never solved a poo problem. "You could spray it with the hose every time it comes over," but who can predict a cat's schedule and watch a fence all day long? I mean, who has time to potty train the neighbor's cat? "You could talk it over with the neighbor. Maybe he'd be understanding." Hehe, yeah or he'd know who to blame when his cat went missing. So really the only thing a guy can do is kill it or lose it. Unless this is where the long-suffering comes into play. It depends on a person's level of suffer-ability.*

The adults have agreed to place a can of tuna fish in a cardboard box.

And working as a kennel tech at an animal clinic that summer I found the whole thing quite amusing. Every day at my job I bathe animals, I clean their little ears and give them their pills sometimes, I trim their nails and keep the doghouse under control so to speak.

I've never used a cardboard, tuna fish, to entice a cat into a bath. My co-workers would laugh at me.

I was their puurfect person for the job. But I couldn't draw the moral line in their favor. It just so happens I like the neighbor. He gave us chocolate chip cookies one day. How do I conspire to kill his cat?

 

*Apparently nusient is not a word, but it should be.
*Suffer-ability should be a word too.