Tales From The Nightshift

So, TINS©, TIWFDASL© one night in The Maternal State, years and years and years ago. My father had taken ill, and of the three of us boys (the attorney, the contractor, and me, the nurse), it seemed that I was the best fit for the job of helping Mom take care of our Dad.

Well, that, and I was the one who did not have a family.

So, in order to keep my house and my vehicle, my creditors agreed that it would be nice if I were to continue receiving a paycheck, while I was 800 miles from home, and taking a voluntary leave of absence from my employment. So, I became a travel nurse!

This one night, I was working midnights at Some Suburban Megalopolis Hospital’s ED. It was way, way late, and we had cleared all the souls from our beds, and were engaging in my favorite slack time occupation, Story Hour.

So, one nurse was recounting how her boyfriend was failing to meet performance/behavioral expectations in one way or another. The other nurses (all women) responded, in a sort of choir, with murmurs of affirmation for the reporter. Except for one particular nurse.

This woman’s speech was rich with the cadence and harmonies of Da Islands, with a Caribbean note permeating her pronouncements.

“Aw, naw, ghurl! Ya no haveta put up with dem shenanigans! He gotta go, out de doah!”

The chorus affirmed this pronouncement.

The protagonist in our little Greek tragedy continued with her lamentations of Mr. Unworthy’s misdeeds, and our Caribbean Correspondent again provided her assessment: “Out de doah!”

Again, the call of more misdeeds, again the response from the congregation: “Oh, naw! Out De Doah!”

It devolved into a documentary of The Misdeeds Of Men, and along about that time, I found something I ought to be doing. At the other end of the department.

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