Friday, November 30, 2007

Things I overheard (but not while talking to myself)

Which is a reference to Alan Alda's new book, the title of which just cracks me the heck up.

I discovered this while cruising the Barnes and Noble this morning looking for knitting books (I'm still trying to come up with the perfect scarf pattern). I had a little time to kill before the hamburger place opened up (Five Guys Famous Burgers and Fries...it's an east coast chain, and the world's perfect post-call, I've-been-up-all-night sort of food, which I developed a craving for sometime around 4am. Maggie? Also enjoyed her cheeseburger) so I decided to go to the B&N next door.

I love books. And bookstores. Bookstores always make me a little euphoric, especially when combined with exhaustion. I think it's the fumes from the pages or the bookbinding glue or something. Definitely book fumes. No, really, it's a problem. I have literally a thousand books or more that have accumulated over the years, and I just keep reading. I'm thinking of developing a crack habit, it might be cheaper.

So anyway. I was on call again last night. It wasn't bad. And I managed to collect three very amusing quotes:

1. "Don't try your devilish ways on me, woman!" One of the men up on long-term said this to me when I was trying to convince him to take his sedative after he started swinging at staff members. I thanked him, told him it had been an awfully long time since a man called me "devilish".

2. "Oh, and I'm a vegetarian." From a very pleasant, very manic woman I admitted overnight. This wouldn't actually be funny, except that she said it through a mouth full of chicken sandwich.

3. "Patient's father has a heroine addiction." On a chart that was faxed to me to try and get me to accept the patient. I think they meant "heroin." Those are different things. But then, these are also the people to whom "Well, when you send all the documents we require, I'll have to look at her chart and call you back before I can accept her for transfer" somehow meant "send the patient right now."

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