And now for something completely different… the story of Sumdood’s Army.
OK, it was written in 2007 and I just found it. I’m late to the party. So what? It’s hilarious. I found it at A Day In The Life Of An Ambulance Driver.
Here’s how it starts:
“What is your last name, Sir?” I ask, watching the guy with the dank, greasy hair sitting at the triage desk, nervously wringing his hands.
“Gol,” he simpered. “G-O-L.”
“And your first name?”
“Smea. S-M-E-A,” he answered, baring his rotted teeth in an obsequious grin. He grimaced and cleared his throat painfully.
Eeeeewwww. Somebody has the meth mouth.
“So what brings you to the ER today, Mr. Smea Gol?”
From there things get weird:
“I pull a document from the file cabinet, march out to the ER entrance, and gird myself for battle. The ER clerk, fear and desperation etched into her features, stands with her back to the barred door. Outside, the howls of the fibromyalgia orcs herald their thirst for blood.
Stout heart, AD. And if you go down, go down swinging.
I heft the six-foot, carved rosewood caduceus adorning the ER hallway off of its hanger, and hold it before me like a scepter. Taking a deep breath, I nod for the ER clerk to clear out, and I fling open the doors.
The patients charge…”
Frighteningly accurate picture. Let me add, about the Press-Ganey scores, that we attend monthly mandatory pre-dawn meeting to hear what these numbers are, and the raises that are tied to them are two to five cents per hour annual increases. Not a huge threat, but definitely a pain in the arse.
Just another day in a big city ER…….