I have had to undergo these stoopid rabies shots: Day 0 (six shots), then days 3, 7, 14, and 28. Thing is, the Center for Disease Control makes sure that not just anyone can waltz around with a rabies vaccination, so I get to spend hours in the ER/Urgent Care at University Medical Center in Tucson.
Let me tell ya, It’s a Trip. A real wild ride.
Normally, in situations such as this, where people are stuck in a room and have to be there, I try to make nice. At UMC, however, I don’t make eye contact, don’t touch anything, and all I can think about is, “Must wash hands. Must wash hands…”. Here’s a snapshot: I walk in and the place is packed. All sorts. Truly a grab bag of the worst types of things and people. A filthy looking mom is screaming at another woman, her three year-old, her ten year-old son and a one year-old, give or take. One of the things I hear her say is, “WHAT THE F@#$ DO YOU WANT TO DRINK?!?! DECIDE!!!! You are such a pain in the ass!!”. This was to the three year-old. Immediately beside her son is one empty chair. Uh, no thanks. The other empty chair is right next to a forty year-old woman writhing and moaning in pain, in a wheelchair, completely hyperventilating, foot in a bucket of ice. I sit next to her and don’t look. Not four minutes later, she nudges me (touches me) and begs me to move cuz she’s gonna faint and needs my seat, too. What? Faint WHY? It looked like she had a bruise on her foot. I smiled and moved to the chair by the boy with the woman yelling at him because he spilled a couple of Reese’s Pieces. F-n Awkward to say the very least.
An hour later, I’m in the ortho room in Urgent care, yes, sharing a room with this fainty cry baby of a woman. She is telling her story to the nurse. She fell off of her couch. That’s right. Fell off of the couch at 2 am. She is sobbing and squirming and writhing and twisting and bawling. The X-Ray tech girls come in talking about the Hooter’s Hotel that one of them stayed at then talked about a guy on myspace. They gave no sympathy and I liked them immediately. The woman tried harder to get attention from them but she didn’t even register on the radar. I had a new person come in to see me and say something every few minutes and I liked every one of them. The nurse finally came in and gave me the hot pink shot which, being unrealistically optimistic in times like this, I have decided it WILL GIVE ME SUPER POWERS. It has to. I at first thought it might give me a little patience with people who piss and moan, or scream and bawl, when they fall off of the couch. Then scream harder when they get an X-Ray for God’s sake…
But no. ‘Cuz that would be impossible for me.
I’m hoping the crazy pink injections will make me exempt from certain situations. That is what I’m thinking will happen. Exempt from Urgent Care. That will be my superhuman power. That is much more reasonable than me thinking I’ll ever be that sympathetic.
I was set to go to the DMV today, too, because my tags have expired. I cancelled that plan. There is only so much a person can take. I mean, geez, after screaming on the inside for that long, the DMV would’ve sent me to ….? I can’t even think of anything worse to finish that sentence.
Just another day in the Ghetto. Just another charge in restitution for those lousey dog owners.
Tomorrow, the DMV.
Today, I quit people.
BB
Hey Becky, we should definitely hang out…shoot me an email theocdb3@yahoo.com with your number and I can give you a call. Or you can just tell jones when you want to go out to eat and he can call me. We are doing big square tomorrow and are meeting jones at the starbucks on university at 11.