An Exemplary Day

I'm sick. My sinuses are completely full and I have a fever. I was at work til 2130 last night. My head feels like a nasty magic trick, like it's bigger on the inside than outside. I look in the mirror, and the swelling has actually filled in a crease or two, my eyes are all puffy. How can those two little ethmoid sinuses filling up make you feel like nothing will ever be okay again?

On top of that, it's cold. Freezing. And I hate the cold. I had to wear long underwear beneath my scrubs.

My parents are going nuts. They are showing up at the house at early in the morning and late at night, and leaving up to ten messages a day on both phones. Nothing messages, but full of bile. "Did you know that Lilly is going to a party at Diddle's? Did you know that?" My mother says, in one. They both leave long messages that take up the entire message space. If a guy was doing that to you, you'd get a restraining order. The subtext is "your kids suck and so do you." I can't describe to you how unpleasant and really mean spirited my mother is. I try to tell people about it, and they're kind of dismissive. Then they meet her and they understand. She's told Lilly that she's evil and has no heart and will never marry because boys will sense that. She told me the same thing. She once accused me (at 13) of having "something going on" with my father. She takes every experience and emotion you relate to her and coats it with grime. Talking to her is like "eating a dirt sandwich. You want to rinse your mouth and heart out afterwards.

"We never talk," she complains.

That's right!

So, I have a terrible day yesterday. Lilly lies about breakfast and I catch her. So I have to go to her school and make sure she eats her snack, which is humiliating for both of us. I was called off in the morning, but get called in by the rude staffing clerk who has a way of treating nurses as if we're call girls. At work yesterday. I have a patient covered with gorgeous tattoos of skulls and demons and pentacles with a lot of skull fractures and asked the RT, who's just this doofus, to help me bring him up in bed, and he slams his head into the headboard. In front of the family.

The fiance, who's already unfriendly because a pastor walked in unannounced and "why didn't I know about it?" goes screaming to the hospitality people, my manager, the house mom, and my supervisor.

Fortunately, as my manager tells me, when I go in to tell her about the incident, "she thinks your name is Julie."

And it wasn't my fault. It was that horrible RT's fault.

Then I get a trauma, who's just a mess. And takes up all my time and energy for the rest of the afternoon.

"Exemplary day." Wiz says to me at the end of the shift. "You had an exemplary day."

"It didn't feel that way."

"That's just your ego talking. Fucking you. Brain and body. The big fight" He says, nodding cryptically.

On my way out the car, my phone rings. The hospital is under construction, so we have to park far away, about a 20 minute walk. There's a shuttle, but it doesn't run at night and it's always slow. I have to trudge out late, in the dark, past the dead unblinking black eyes of the new half-constructed structures, the chain link fences, the piles of building materials, pipes, bricks, gravel. The phone rings, and pick it up, and it's my mother. Yellling at me about Lillly. "Why didn't you tell us she was going to a party?"
"Because she doesn't need your help getting there or getting home with it."
"Did you know she's going to a movie too? Did you know that?"
I'm climbing up a gravel incline to get to the level of the lot where my car is. Since I'm angry at my mother and not watching where I'm going, I slip and fall, scraping my knees right through my layers and twisting my finger.
"God damn it," I yell into the phone, losing my cool. "Quit calling me. Quit leaving messages over every god damn thing. Quit showing up at 6 am. Just stop it. I'm not talking to you. I don't have to listen to this." I hung up. Reached the saab, all by itself except for an SUV with steamed windows and its motor running about 4 spaces down.

I throw my phone and my coffee cup and purse into the back seat of the car. There's a ticket on the car.

A ticket! In this freezing lot they charge me to park in--a half mile away from the hospital in a construction lot. And the fucking powers that be had the gall to give me a ticket. Some stupid workstudy officious little college student wandering around with his pad. What's happened to all the young people, man? Why have they all turned into such nazis? What have we done wrong?

I kick the car. Then I apologize to it. Not Elka's fault.

A window rolls down on the SUV. Santeria by Sublime, blares out. A young blonde woman sticks her head out.

"Dude." She says, "you look like you are having a bad night. Want to smoke a bowl with us?" Her friend, dark haired, leans over. Both are smiling, pretty long haired girls. Girls like I was. I would have done that, at that age.

I walk over to the car.

"Come one," they urge. "Climb in. It's good shit."

My bad mood disappates. I shake my head. Smile. "No, thanks, though. There's no way I can sit in the parking lot where I work getting baked. With the kind of day I've had, I'll just bring the murphy karma right in on you."

"Yeah, dude," the blonde girl says, nodding her head. "I get you. Well, have a good night! Feel better."

And I don't. But I do, too.

That's my 1/2 hour.