Free Food

I get free meals at the hospital. Every morning I go through the line and get the same thing: 2 hard-boiled eggs. It is the only gluten-free thing they have that I can see besides the Gatorade and tired, tasteless apples brought out of storage from last winter. And every morning the lady who serves me the eggs says with surprise, "is that all? Are you sure? You're so tiny." Either she is determined to get me to gain the intern 15 before my rotation ends, or she is just baffled by my order after serving orders along the lines of "1 cheese omlette, 2 hashbrowns, 3 sausages, 3 strips of bacon, and a cinnamon bun, to go please." Just because you work at a hospital doesn't mean you eat healthy food.

You Had a Bad Week

On a Crowded Hospital Shuttle

Resident (on cell phone): I'm on the bus and it's crowded, so I have to talk quietly.

There is a moment of silence as the person on the other end of the line talks.

Resident (in an even louder voice than before): It's going well, I'm glad to be here, but it has been a rough week.

Another pause as the other person talks.

Resident (even more loudly so it is hard not to hear throughout the bus): Well, in the past week my dog got sick and had to go to the emergency vet, I got hit by a car while riding my bike, and our apartment nearly burned down and the fire department had to come and put it out.

Damn, now that's what The Lone Coyote calls a very bad week.

After Work

At a bus stop outside the county hospital.

Man (clad in dirty jeans and a T-shirt, carrying a backpack, talking to no one in particular): I got my meds, got my meds got my meds.

(He moves closer to a woman in scrubs)

Man (to woman): I got my meds and I got out of the hospital today. The psych hospital.

Woman (avoiding eye contact): Mmmhmmm.

Man (looking around): I like it here. It's much better than Miami where I came from. People here are much nicer.

Woman (still avoids contact): Mmmhmmm.

Man (looking around some more): Hey, isn't that a liquor store over there?

Woman (not looking at him or the liquor store): Mmmmhmmm.

Man: Whoa, in all the cities I've been to, I've never seen a liquor store that close to a hospital. (long pause)
Well, I guess those doctors need to do and get drunk after work when they spend their days dealing with crazy people like me!