SNIPPETS V

STORY THE FIRST

So, TINS, TIWFDASL, just a couple of weeks ago, and, as I entered the room, I was greeted by the younger of the two women seated in the exam room. “There he is! You saved my mother’s life!”

While that certainly was a welcome greeting, I admitted that I was confused. The younger woman, evidently the daughter, filled in the missing pieces. Several weeks previously, she (the narrator) had accompanied her mother (the other soul in the room while we conversed) to a visit to our clinic. She (the mother) had been having a cough of some sort, and I had felt that something in the experience did not sound right. After some assessment in clinic, I had sent the mother to ED, and those worthies had identified a 100% occlusion of one of mom’s coronary arteries (the arteries feeding the heart). Mother had received a stent, and been sent home, and was still among us. Indeed, she was here, today, due to another cough.

Thankfully, today’s cough appeared uncomplicated, and I recommended my usual measures to ameliorate the post nasal drip that seemed to be the source of the cough.

Sometimes I get to think that I really do, from time to time, positively impact people’s lives. That’s nice to think.

STORY, THE SECOND.

Just the other day, I was shopping. Such is the life of a life saving, disease fighting, internet blogging champion (of sorts). As it develops, I am middling tall: 5-7 or so. It turns out that the pasta I was hunting for was on the top shelf, and several other people had purchased some, before me. THAT meant that I could just barely not reach the boxes. I had just realized that I, a tool using animal, could open my knife and extend my reach, tipping over the needed number of boxes, and add same to my cart. That is, I had just realized it, when a gentleman, taller than I, reached up, grabbed a box, and handed it to me, asking me if I needed more.

I requested two more, and thanked him, moving forward with my shopping.

A few aisles over I observed a woman attempting to retrieve an item from a shelf beyond her reach. Before I could respond, another (taller) gentleman stepped up, retrieved the sought item, and handed it to her.

Everyday, plain folks, acts of civility and kindness.

STORY, THE THIRD

We visited my wife’s sister, and her husband, recently. They live in rural Kentucky, and it is rather a change from their previous neighborhood in Metropolis. Indeed, it is a considerable change from my table-flat neighborhood of Un-Named Flyover State.

We arrived, following the directions provided, and noted that the terrain was, well, “hilly” does not really do it justice. As a consequence of that terrain, roadways tend to meander, circling around this hill, or weaving their way up to, over, and down that ridge.

We had spent something like 45 minutes meandering , as the road took us up in elevation, when I noted a sign ahead, announcing “Curves Ahead!”.

I turned to TDW-Mark II, and exclaimed, “Wait, what? THAT was the STRAIGHT part?”

STORY, THE FOURTH: OOPS!

So, TINS, TIWFDASL, and, well, things had come to a slow down. I was working with a physician, on this day at this clinic, and she had never handled an adrenalin autoinjector. We had one handy, and I handed it to her so she could examine it.

I was not quite quick enough, to admonish her to not remove the guard, nor to handle the trigger, on the one end of the device. Therefore, she did, successfully, remove the cap, and then trigger it, sending the needle into one of her fingers, along with some of the adrenalin therein.

The Good News was that, since she was youthful, she promptly withdrew her hand, and therefore only received a fractional dose. The bad news is that adrenalin is a very, very powerful vasoconstrictor, and therefore her affected finger became very, very white, and also burned. Oh, yes, it burned. I cast about, wondering if we had any phentolamine. (an alpha blocker: used to reverse the effects of, among others, adrenalin, when injected into an end capillary bed, Like you would find in your fingers.) Since ours was not an ICU, nor an ED, we did not have phentolamine, nor anything that would serve.

The good news, such as it was, is that due to her youthful age, good health habits (spelled n-o-t s-m-o-k-i-n-g) and the fractional dose of adrenalin she had received, well, after around 20 minutes, her finger regained it’s color, the burning pain faded, and she returned to normal, simply just a bit more shaky than previously.

Subsequently, I obtained, and CONSPICUOUSLY labeled a trainer, specifically intended to harmlessly teach folks how to handle and operate an adrenalin autoinjector. This one has no needle, and no drug.

STORY, THE FIFTH

So, TINS, TIWFDASL….well, okay. I was NOT FDASL, rather, I was off, and, having accomplished all my chores (or, such fraction of “all my chores” as I was going to accomplish that day), my step son (son of TDW-Mark II) called. I had spoken to him about a range day, and he was off work that day, I was off work that day, and it was off to the range we went.

I took my Garand, my .380 pistol, and my 9 mm pistol. Of course, I grabbed the ammo can labeled 30-06 (for the Garand), .380 (surprisingly enough, for the pistol in caliber .380), and the ammo can labeled “9 mm” for, no doubt surprising, the 9 mm pistol.

Now, recall that I have been an RN for, lo, these many yeas. That I have passed uncounted thousands upon thousands of doses of medications, and double checked myself each time, so as to accomplish the “5 rights” of med pass: right patient, right drug, right dose, right route, and at the proper time. This was effected by reading the order, the med container, comparing each with the other, and then, DOING SO AGAIN.

So, we arrived at the range, uncased the Garand, and set up targets. Several dozen rounds later, we placed the rifle in the case, put the ammunition away, and took out the .380 pistol. Fun times.

When it came time to take out, and shoot, the 9 mm pistol, well, I went to the “9 mm” ammo can, opened it, and beheld something like 200 rounds of RIFLE AMMUNITION.

For those in the studio audience who are unfamiliar with Things Firearm, well, 9 mm is a pistol round, and rifle rounds are (a) the wrong size overall, (b) with the wrong projectile (bullet), propelled by (c) an entirely wrong charge of powder, leading to (d) entirely way, way more pressure once the cartridge is set off, for any common pistol to contain, meaning (e) should, somehow, a rifle cartridge be forced into the pistol that I had before me, anyone firing it, should they survive the resulting explosion, would forever after be known as “Lefty”.

Not mentioning the emotional distress I would experience should this pistol, one of my favorites, be reduced to shrapnel.

Sigh. It appears that I had horribly failed the ammunition labeling process, leading to jovial kidding from my step son. Other than that, a good day at the range.

And, the ammunition got re-(and correctly)-labeled.

REDUNDANCY.

The other day, I was reading about everyday carry, and one writer was talking about how “two is one, and one is none”.

I recalled one night, nursing midnights in ICU. Now, every single hospital that I have ever worked at, has an emergency generator. These are equipped (or, at least, SUPPOSED to be equipped) with an automatic apparatus, that is intended to identify an interruption in the supply of power from the local power company, and start up the on site emergency generator, and then, once said generator is up to speed and functioning, disconnect the hospital from the shore power, and energize all “emergency” circuits from the generator.

As it developed, on this night, the power went out, and everything went black. We eagerly awaited the onset of generator power, but, alas, such was not to be.

Now, y’all may not know this, but in an ICU, there is an abundance of very, very sick folks. Indeed, several of them are dependent on ventilators to, well, ventilate them, since their illness renders them incapable of breathing adequately on their own.

With that thought in mind, it may not be a surprise that these life saving ventilators require an uninterrupted supply of several things, not the least of which is electricity, in order to function. When the power fails, and the emergency generators do NOT promptly start up, well, things get interesting.

While the ventilators, themselves, do NOT have battery backup, the alarms signaling malfunction, do. In order to respond to these alarms, the nurses, such as myself, need to alight from our chairs, walk around the nurse’s station, enter the room, and identify and remedy the fault eliciting the alarm.

(a) That is considerably easier to accomplish when you can see where the frack you are going, and identify trip-and-fall hazards, prior to, uh, tripping over said hazard, and falling upon your face.

(b) Should you have TWO ventilated patients, you are tasked with reaching each patient, disconnecting that soul from the (nonfunctioning) ventilator, and manually ventilating them employing the manual bag-valve resuscitator kept at bedside for just this sort of problem.

Except, you are one, non elasto-nurse, person.

As it developed, our ward clerk was in nursing school, was intelligent, and had paid attention. She ventilated my second patient, and the on-unit respiratory therapist ventilated Mary Sue’s second ventilated patient.

It only took a couple of minutes (…that seemed like hours!) before we regained power. But, I thereafter took to carrying a flashlight on my person.

Problem solved, right?

Not so right. A couple of weeks later, the power failed, again. The generator failed to generate, again, and I thought, “Voila! I’ll whip out my handy-dandy flashlight, and illuminate the area!”

Problem with that, is that the flashlight had somehow turned itself on, while on my belt, and was deader than disco. So, same cluster…er, hug (yeah! HUG!), same musical ventilation, and same subjective eternity until power came back on.

New! Improved! Plan, was a couple of flashlights, with a regularly (every other month) assessment of function and battery charged-ness. As well as additional flashlights squirreled about my person. So, presently, I have two flashlights on my belt, two in my shirt pocket (one Streamlight Stylus Pro, another that has been customized with a near UV emitter, so that I can use it as a Wood’s Lamp), one on my badge (one of the coin cell lights thrown in with my order from the folks selling me my CR 123 batteries), and one on my keyring (a Streamlight Nanolight). (none of these are any sort of freebie: I bought the Nanolight, and the Stylus, and then bought several more, at retail, because they perform for me what I need doing. Like, illuminate my way when nocturnal dogwalking, allowing me to avoid a dirt faceplant.)

PARENTING STRIPES

Another blog had an entry that reminded me of one of my own parenting moments. As I recollect, Number One Son was misbehaving, and so The Darling Wife-Mark I and I imposed some limits: grounding or some such thing. We observed that a repeat performance would elicit a spanking.

He responded, “Well, I’ll just call the police!”

I smiled. Told him to get his shoes, and get in the car. Now.

We had a leisurely drive to our local small town police department. I asked if I could speak to an officer. The nice desk lady asked, why?

I responded, “This child just informed me that should he require a spanking, and I administer it, he will call the police. I simply do not want to wait. May I speak to an officer, please?”

She bade us sit, and soon an officer arrived. I introduced myself and Number One Son. The officer asked, had I spanked the lad yet?

I replied, no, not yet.

He asked, in what manner would I spank the child?

I responded, with my bare hand, since the point was not pain, nor injury, but, rather, recalibration of his behavior. Once my hand started to hurt, likely my purpose had been accomplished.

So, the officer asked, you intend to spank this child, if other measures do not change his behavior, in order to discipline him?

Yep, was my answer.

“Isn’t that kind of your duty as a parent, to correct misbehaving children? I do not see anything you are describing as actionable by me. You’re simply doing your job as a dad.”

I turned to my son, and asked, “Do you have any other questions for the nice officer?”

Jes’ Folks. Plain, Everyday Folks

Glenn Reynolds, proprietor of Instapundit, wrote an article for USA Today, nearly three years ago. Read it, please. And, reflect on who benefits when we are set at each other’s throats.

https://www.usatoday.com/story/opinion/2019/07/22/fatal-car-accident-reveals-fundamental-american-decency-column/1790753001/

I have had similar experiences, among them one chronicled here. It was as if we had our own “Insert Name Here County First Responders Association” meeting, there on that highway.

Again, this tale recalls a similar event. In this case, folks trudged their happy asses out of their warm, dry, non-windy homes, to help push a nearly (lessee: nought goes into nought… divide by zero…. carry the eight… three guzintas…) 10,000 pound ambulance out of a snow drift, at night, while it was snowing it’s freaking ass off.

So, tell me again who benefits when we are set against each other? If we are demonizing each other, how likely is it that we can ever (a) agree on a list of priority problems, (b) discuss rational maneuvers to address these problems, and (c) agree on any sort of effort to implement these interventions?

Por ejemplo, howzabout covid? Could we have discussed risk vs benefit of lockdowns, of “two years to flatten the curve” (had our governor been honest), or, even, “two weeks to flatten the curve”? Could we have had a real, ya know, two way, conversation about vaccination, efficacy, adverse drug reactions, liberty, personal autonomy (remember “my body, my choice”? Seems so long ago. Good times, eh?), risk vs benefit? Instead, anybody who speaks about any sort of disincentive to accepting vaccination, like, say, severely truncated testing protocols, or, say, known (even if small in magnitude) incidence of cardiac adverse reactions, or any of a dozen (that I can think of off the top of my head) risks genuinely presented by the extant vaccines, gets shouted down, deplatformed, or, worse, fired and hounded. So, I ask, who benefits when that happens?

In stark contrast to the Chattering Class, above cited are first person narratives of genuine Americans who, in a crisis, come together and identify what needs doing, and then, quietly, FREAKING DO IT. These folks identified one of their neighbors, identified that this neighbor was in need, and set to work. No command, no haggling, no bullshit. Simply, “How can I help?”

Tell you what: I resolve to be inspired by good examples. I will try to NOT buy into name calling, and, rather, own disagreements with others, and seek to see those disagreements as honest differences of opinion, where I am able to do so.

I resolve to try to be inspired by volunteer firefighters who interrupt Christmas with their families, in order to respond to a neighbors catastrophe.

If we open our eyes, there are uncounted examples of folks living up to their ideals, even as there are examples everywhere of those who fail. Sometimes fail horribly.

Mr. Reynolds, thank you for reminding me that most of the time, most folks simply try to get through their day, and, maybe, help their neighbor. To paraphrase his thought, I will try to let myself be reminded that, given the opportunity, most folks will reveal their fundamental decency.

SNIPPETS PART IV

I hope that nobody is surprised to learn that, since The Un-Named Fly-Over State is in the northern tier of states, it snows here in the winter (And the fall. And the spring.) That has been the case for certainly the past nearly 70 years that I have been here. Therefore I would hope that my neighbors would have figured that shit out, by now.

On the other hand, there is abundant evidence that my hope in this matter is misplaced.

So, TINS, TIWFDASL…well, OK, I was driving in to work one snowy winter day in order to begin my day of FDASL. I was listening to the amateur radio in my vehicle, and monitoring the county’s fire department dispatch. No ill tidings from that front.

I did notice a car off the road, into the ditch, but I figured that the county deputy already on the scene had things well in hand.

So, there I was, listening to the FM radio, and waiting for any alarming traffic on the HAM radio, when I saw this guy, no shit, skate his compact pickup truck completely across the 3 lanes of expressway traffic, having apparently originated from the on ramp. My guess was that he had entered the ramp at speed that was excessive for the conditions. (did I mention that it had snowed the preceding night? Well, it had. Likely had something to do with the other guy in the ditch.)

Anyhow, once he reached the median shoulder, he started to wifferdill his way along that shoulder, inching his way into the median’s ditch. He did manage to stay upright, so, that was nice…..

The thought crossed my mind, “coefficient of friction: words to live by!”

@@@Snippet The Second@@@

You may recall my tales of cat-herding (Farming? Wrangling?). In any event, one of the cats had a recurring conjunctivitis, such that our local vet voiced concern regarding the potential of a ruptured globe (eyeball breach, with vision-destroying loss of the fluid-vitreous and aqueous humor that is within the eyeball), versus a vision damaging occurrence of scars on the (supposed to be) clear portion of the eyeball.

So, we arranged an appointment with a veterinary ophthalmologist.

Of course, this doctor practiced in an office something like three counties over from our home. Of course, on the appointed day, it was a balmy 33 degrees (f), and could not decide to snow, rain, sleet, or what.

Fun times.

I learned on this trip, that driving Trixie T. Cat anywhere, was very much akin to driving your small, furry, outspoken, elderly, mother-in-law somewhere. I was the recipient of a running series of corrections, spoken (of course) in Cat, that likely would have sounded like “You’re driving too fast!”, “You’re driving too slow!”, “Why can’t you stay in one lane?” (this as I signaled, eased over into the -clear-adjacent lane, and in the course of doing so, ran over the ridge of slush built up between the lanes. So the truck jerked.), “Why aren’t we there yet?”, and the ever popular, “Where the hell are you taking me? I don’t want to go there! Let me out of this damned cat carrier!”

That is, would have sounded like that, if I spoke Cat.

As you might imagine, first off, back seat driving is oh, so very welcome at any time at all. Secondly, such corrections are even more welcome when the driving is, oh, gosh, I dunno, HAZARDOUS! Thirdly, let me take a moment to congratulate TDW-Mark II. She successfully suppressed her baseline impulses to shriek, gasp, or otherwise demonstrate her appreciation of her/our impending DOOM! Probably figured that the cat had that well covered.

It’s All In How You See Things!

Sometime towards Mom’s 98^th year, we, her children, began to consider, and present to her as a possibility, the idea that perhaps she ought to live in an assisted living establishment of some sort. She had owned up to some difficulties with traversing the stairs to and from the basement, where the laundry facilities of her home were located. In addition, there were no blood kin anywhere near her.

She was unimpressed. First off, she was unenthusiastic about moving from the home she had shared with our father, her husband, for a dozen years, and where she had lived during the following thirty years.

Secondly, she had grown accustomed to her home, and did not want to leave her home, in any event.

Third, her solution to “all your children live a thousand miles away, if not on the other side of the planet”, was that one, or all, of us should simply relocate to The Un-Named Maternal State, forsaking our present homes.

Not happening. Brother The Second had his own business, and that sort of thing is not readily amenable to simply relocating halfway across the country. I was not gonna live under the way liberal regime of said state, anyhow, and that was not even considering the fact that all my children resided in The Un-Named Fly Over State. Grandkids, as well.

Finally, Mom presented her (in her view) closing argument: “I simply do not want to live with a bunch of old folks!”

(silent rejoinder: “Mom! You are ninety-freaking-years-old! Rilly?”)

Everybody Brings Sunshine Into My Life….

From time to time, I determine that an antibiotic will be helpful in resolving whatever ill is present in my patient. For example, folks with dental infections, and who are not allergic to beta lactam antibiotics (those related to penicillin), get amoxicillin. It is what our dental colleagues have directed me to employ as first line, and pretty nearly always gets the job done.

So, TINS, TIWFDASL, and my patient-du-jour had a dental infection. I presented my spiel, winding up with the observation that I would be sending over a prescription for amoxicillin.

This soul stated that they had received amoxicillin several years ago, and “it didn’t work”.

May I step back for a little bit of dental anatomy? Any surgeon (and, dentists are surgeons of a particular specialty) will tell you that antibiotics are wasted on any abscess, due to the fact that the overwhelming majority of the pathogens are afloat in the pus filling the abscess, and, since no abscess has any sort of circulatory system, any antibiotic will only make it to the periphery of the lesion, and not the the seat. Indeed, surgeons generally are of the opinion (an opinion probably developed during years of residency and 20,000 to 40,000 hours of patient contact) that the foundation of resolving an abscess is to drain the abscess. That will both greatly, greatly reduce the population of germs remaining to cause mischief, but also place those germs in close proximity to tissue that, indeed, has circulation, and therefore provide the antibiotic the ability to access, and damage, the germs.

GUM abscesses are potentially susceptible to intervention by clinicians such as I myself am. TOOTH abscesses, including dental pulp and/or dental root infections, are immune to my attentions.

Therefore, plausibly, this soul’s historic experience with amoxicillin could have been due to the infection remaining inaccessible to the antibiotic.

Back to my story. This child of God requested “something stronger” than amoxicillin.

Two competing thoughts sprang into my mind: First, amoxicillin is the drug of choice. Prescribing something else is akin to purchasing a full ton passenger van to transport your gravel, because “big vans are stronger!”, or something. Really, using the proper tool for the job makes so much more sense.

Secondly, there are several reasons why clinicians do not simply “prescribe something stronger”. One if them is NOT that we are all assholes, who want people to be/stay sick. Rather, for example, gentamicin is used all the time in ICUs for patients who are terribly sick. (wonder if that has anything to do with the reason that they are in ICU to begin with?) These folks get regular blood draws, to be sure that the concentration of drug in the blood is within certain bounds. Too little, and it is less effective than needed. Too much, and deafness and/or kidney failure can result, among other bad things.

So, for certain values of “stronger”, gentamicin is, indeed, “stronger”. On the other hand, deafness as a consequence of your long delayed dental care appears, to me, to be a risk out of proportion to the anticipated benefit. Particularly when I can anticipate the same benefit, with rare risk, from, gosh, er, um, oh, I dunno, AMOXICILLIN.

Back to my story, backing away, a little, from my rant-du-jour: I asked this soul what antibiotic had been beneficial, for past dental infections?

The answer, I swear to Crom, was, “I don’t know. You’re the doctor, don’t you know?”

Words. They fail me.

Telemedicine: Threat, or Menace?

One fine day, I was at work, FDASL, and received a text from my daughter, let’s call her Brenda. She related that her second child had developed what looked like pink eye, to Brenda’s assessment. She (Brenda) had contacted whoever, and that medical soul had video chatted/e-visited/virtually visited/some other bullshit with my grand daughter, and had prescribed an ophthalmic antibiotic.

Brenda was not altogether certain that this assessment was spot on, and wanted her clinician dad’s take on things.

As you may have surmised, MY take on non patient contact, not in the same room “visits”, is not filled with much enthusiasm. There is something to the gestalt of being in the physical presence of somebody, that provides you with clues that are neither evident, nor are they provided across a video screen of any sort. (Ever smell the fruity breath of diabetic ketoacidosis? Ever smell it over a phone?)

Placing that aside for a moment, I asked for some pix. (I am aware that this amounted to the very same thing I had just, 11 words ago, railed against. Wait for it.) My grandchild’s eye appeared red, and (uncommonly in pink eye), so did the tissue surrounding her eye.

I asked if this grandchild could move her gaze left and right, upwards and downwards, painlessly. Was there any change in her vision?

The response I received was that the vision in her affected eye was “blurry”, as well as “it hurts when she looks up”.

My response text, verbatim, was, “Who is going to see her in person, in the next half hour?”

Brenda took her child to our local urgent care, which clinician, to THIS clinician’s credit, is reported to have entered the room, taken one look at my grand daughter, and turned to her mother, and said “So, I’m not going to charge you for this visit. Do you know the way to Big City Referral Hospital? Good. Do not dawdle. Go directly there, now. Yes, I mean the emergency department. Thank you. Drive safely.”

THOSE folks examined her, CT’d her, and started an IV (a process that Grand Daughter did NOT approve of!), and IV antibiotics, and admitted her for several days. The CT had revealed a peri orbital cellulitis (mild, but, nonetheless…), which responded to the medication.

She is now home, sassy, and none the worse for the experience. Take home points: Brenda demonstrates many, many of the affirmative attributes of The Plaintiff: she is smart, decisive, has a finely calibrated and high functioning “shit don’t sound right” detector, and is a bulldog advocate for her children.

I loathe “telemedicine”.

Sometimes I am both blessed and lucky. This time, to the benefit of my grandchild.

KITTEN TAILS PART VI

So, TINS, TIWFDASL….we, uh, no, I was NOT Fighting Disease And Saving Lives, rather, I was at home while TDW-Mark II recovered from surgery. (Thankfully, minor. Well, “Minor” from my perspective. I’m pretty cure that, for whoever goes under anesthesia and awakens with sutures and re-arranged body parts, ain’t no such thing as “minor” surgery!)

In any event, on my multiple rounds on TDW, I noted that there appeared to be two, or three, cats perched upon the bed. Should one depart, one would take station. The others would eat, play, loll about: typical cat stuff. The two, or three, “on watch” all appeared to gaze upon her, that is, if they were not snuggled up against her. Just as if they were, indeed, “on watch”.

Olivia appeared to be the one constant watch-stander. She was perched upon TDW’s pillow, and did not seem to move. Others would appear to rotate in and out, but Olivia was pretty constantly there.

When she (TDW) was up and about the next day, she commented about it. “Every time I opened my eyes, one or more of the cats was there, looking at me. I felt as if I had a couple of private duty, furry little nurses!”

Then she reminisced. “remember that time you had your GI bleed? The two dogs, and all three cats (at one time, my cat crazy was under better control….) were settled in all around you! They would only leave to eat, drink, and go. Then, they were right back.”

At that time, we developed the McFee Critter Triage System: if one animal is sleeping with you, that’s normal stuff.

If two of them, well, likely normal, perhaps not.

If three of them, The Spouse needs to take a closer look at things: it ain’t raht!

Four? When is your doctor appointment?

Both dogs, and all three cats? Call dispatch. It might take some explaining (“Ma’am? Did you just tell me that your emergency is that all five animals are sleeping on the bed with your husband? I…I..don’t understand..?”), but Bad Things are at hand. Do Not Dally.

Fortunately, TDW-Mark II recovered uneventfully.

Going Solo

There I was, Fighting Disease And Saving Lives, one weekend day, and I was soloing. Generally, our agency’s practice is to have two providers on duty at a time. On this particular day, I was “It!”, with no partner. The floor staff was sympathetic. I was all “Meh?” about things.

I was reminded of an old joke. It seems this fellow had had his fill of driving a lengthy distance, and elected to stop for the night. He stopped at one hotel, and was told that there were no vacancies.

He stopped at another, and yet another, only to be told, again and again, that there were no vacancies.

Finally, in response, he asked, “If the president of The United States was standing here, telling you that he needed a room for the night, are you telling me that you would turn him away?”

The desk clerk declaimed, “Of course not! Of course, we would make accommodations for The President!”

The traveler squinted at the clerk. “Well, I just read in The Daily Tattler that The President is in Bagwanistan this week. Since he will not be arriving, I’ll take his room!”

The application to my situation was to ask administration if there was anybody else working with me on that day. Of course, as reflected in the fact that there was, you know, nobody else there with me to fight disease and save lives, they would tell me that, no, there was nobody else to work with me that day.

In this imaginary conversation, I would next ask, “Suppose I got hit by a bus on the way in to work today? What would you do, then?”

The reply likely would be that “In that event, we would do (xyz)!”

Which, of course, would elicit the response, “Surprise! I did NOT get hit by a bus! Hey, howzabout (do xyz), and get me some freaking help, eh?”