Emergency room

100691
anurag acharya


                The emergency room

"Hi." What did I do? What does it look like, Sister? I have a great
big gauze oozing blood jammed around my finger. Doesn't that give you
any indication?

"I cut my left index finger." Why did I do that? Oh, you dumb woman, I
did it as a sacrifice to the Sun god Ra! Don't ask me stupid
questions!  Here I am, bleeding all over your floor and you want to
swap badinage! Pshaw!

"I was cutting some cauliflower in the kitchen." If you now start
about all the kitchen accidents that happened to your aunts and your
third cousins once removed, I will kill you! Oh, no! I don't want to
hear about it! help!  Help! Somebody, help!

"Could you please take a look at this?" Surprised you, didn't I? Now
who would have thought you should examine a wound as soon as possible?

"Well, it was kitchen clean. I had just washed it." You don't expect
me to sterilize my kitchen knives everyday, do you?

"Yes, I have had my tetanus shots. Couple of years ago, when I split
my right index finger playing volleyball." That mention was a mistake!
Now, I have started her off again. Darn!

"Ma'am, ma'am, could you please take a look at this?" At last! Ouch!
Didn't they teach you to be gentle at the nursing school? Ouch! Ouch!
And now don't just sit there admiring it! My bone looks like anyone
else's, I presume. Get me gauze or something to staunch the flow.

"Acharya. Let me spell it for you. A-C-H-A-R-Y-A. Yes, that is right.
The first name is Anurag, A-N-U-R-A-G. G as in God." No ma'am, don't
try to pronounce it in a cute accent. I am in no mood to be Prof.
Higgins.

"Yes, I am from Carnegie Mellon."

"No, I don't now how you guessed."

"Oh really, I did not know it showed in the way we talked."

"Yes, yes, I am from IIT." 

Dammit, what is this, a date? This is an emergency room and we don't
have to indulge in idle chitchat. You know perfectly well that almost
any brown face in its twenties is from some IIT or the other. Whatever
happened to the tough, stern, taciturn martinet nurses that I have
heard so much about?  When I am bleeding like a stuck pig, I want more
efficiency and less backchat.

"Oh, yes, it looks like a watch."

"I am sure the children like it." Do I look like a child to you?

"Yes, I know the button won't come off". Yo lady! Cut the chatter and
get me some medical attention before I bean you with my good hand.

"Oh thank you! Room 3 did you say?"

"Yes, I can get there by myself." Cheez, I drove here one handed. I
can surely walk onehanded.

Hang on! Didn't she forget something? "Excuse me ma'am. I am allergic
to Penicillin and Sulfa drugs."

"Yes, ma'am, both of them." If I had a penny for every single time
that I have had to say 'both of them', I just might have been able to
afford to pay for this visit.

Note: It was the Presbyterian University Hospital. Not that that is
irrelevant :)