Saturday Night At The ER

Whether it's for yourself or another unlucky individual, it's never fun when you have to make a trip to the emergency room. Being surrounding by sickness, injuries and sheer bizarreness isn't exactly my idea of a good time.

Last Saturday night, Tina's dad had an issue and we eventually found ourselves sitting in the ER of a local hospital. As he was prepped and tended to, we knew it was going to be a long night. (By the way, Tina's dad is still in the hospital, but he'll be fine).

Now, the first issue of waiting in an ER is the comfort factor. I really believe that hospitals go out of their way to find the most uncomfortable seating possible to furnish their waiting areas. Ironically, after about 15 minutes of sitting in one of these torturous chairs, my back was so wrecked that I thought that I was going to need medical treatment. Looking around the room, it appeared that I wasn't alone as several people were twisting and stretching in a futile attempt to work the knots out of their backs.

As I scanned over to look at Tina, she appeared to be getting nauseous. I asked her if she was ok. She then directed my attention to a young couple sitting across the room. As the guy was slumped over, his girlfriend appeared to be totally obsessed with popping the zits on his back and neck. I tried to quickly look away as I threw up in my mouth a little. I've experienced many WTF moments in my life. But this was way beyond that. She methodically went from one zit to the next with great precision. All I can say is that she must have really loved the guy. Or maybe she was just strung out on meth. I really felt bad for the unsuspecting fools who sat in those seats next..

Looking beyond the zit-popper, we saw another guy who was puking. While I could certainly understand why he might be throwing up, it appeared more like he had his ass kicked by Jack Daniels after a long night of drinking. I silently wished that he would confine his puking to his side of the waiting area.

A short distance from us was an older couple. The man was in one of those mobile scooters that you see the seniors fight over at Walmart. Anyway, the guy would do a short lap around the seating area every few minutes. I couldn't understand what the reason was for this.

After a couple hours, I was exhausted. So, somehow in spite of everything going on around me, I managed to slip off to sleep. That was short-lived as I was awoken by a guy having a loud conversation on a cell phone. The guy, who resembled Snoop Dogg, carried on his slurred banter for about an hour. His contribution to the conversation consisted of, "Nah......Why you do that......Are you serious......Yup, yup......Nah, f*ck dat."

As the night wore on, the waiting room began to look like a Jim Jones Kool-Aid party. In twisted and contorted positions, people were sprawled out all over their seats. One guy had his head cocked sideways as he drooled onto the armrest. Another woman was snoring loud enough to muffle out Snoop Dogg. Even the guy with zits seemed to be passed out. And yes, his girl continued to work on his back as he lay comatose across her lap. She was dedicated, I'll give her that.

We left the hospital shortly before sunrise. I was exhausted and disturbed. I couldn't wait to get home to my own bed where it was clean, quiet and zit-free........

kw