Wednesday, December 10, 2008

They did... WHAT?

My DH had to spend this past weekend in the hospital, some kind of horrible stomach thing. That was bad enough. He's feeling better now, but we were really worried for a while there. He called me at work and I had to take him to the ER where we languished for hours while any number of tests were done to him. The truly terrible part of it, though, was the audacity of TWO hospital employees while we were there.

My DH is a manager of a local video game store. He loves his job, guys, I won't lie. But when a man is writhing in pain in a hospital bed, barely able to speak his own name, its NOT the time to ask him if he carries that game you've been wanting. It's NOT the time to ask him how much that PS3 or X-Box 360 you've been wanting costs. It's NOT the time to talk about your kids' wish lists or ask if you can get a discount if he lives!!!!!

We didn't go to some backwoods, lantern-toting McHospital in the middle of a goat field, we went to shiny new Summit! We get admitted into the ER and someone came back to check him in & get verifiable info on his insurance & employment. That's where it started. The young lady who was taking his info was nearly ecstatic upon finding out where he worked and proceeded to joke and talk about games, even commenting on how inappropriate it was for her to be talking like that! I can be a evil bitch from Hell at the drop of a hat but even I know better than to rip this woman's skin off her face BEFORE they've fixed my husband! So I have to choke back my instincts and get through it. But then as we're leaving we're cornered again. "So YOU'RE the Game-store guy! We've been talkin' 'bout you, up here. Y'all got any Wii systems?"

Y'know those little round holes cut into the plexiglass at banks, well there was nearly a hospital employee jerked through one of those at the hospital Sunday evening.

Logically, I know they are emotionally distant from the ER stuff that goes on around them every night... but I want to physically harm them nonetheless. You wanna smalltalk about game systems, do it when you're not at work. A really good time would be AFTER YOU FIX MY HUSBAND AND HE GETS BACK TO WORK!

Obviously there are rules against what happened to us, or the one lady wouldn't have joked about breaking them. But wouldn't someone wonder WHY those rules were in place? Is there an entire generation of people in this country who are missing their empathy gene? Their common sense? I'm just disgusted. I hope I'm there to see one of those two show up at his store, I will pee in their cars.

As a happy note to end this blog on, here is a marigold-eating piglet whom I had the pleasure of pig-sitting for several days before my Dad was able to pick him up & take him to my Mom. His name is Malcolm and he's just 3 months old in this pig-ture!