I Like People, I Just Don't Like Stupid People!

Monday JC was grinding on some metal out at the ranch and a hot piece shot up, hit his cheek, bounced under his safety glasses and embedded itself in his eye. Only a Moncur would have that kind of luck I tell ya After many failed attempts at flushing it out we decide to call the doctor. Of course all this went down well after the doctor was closed for the day so the advice nurse tells us we need to go right away to the E.R. We weighed our options and decided his eyesight is pretty important to us so we probably should go before the metal worked its way deeper into his eye.

We call and woke up JC's mom to come sit with the boys and off we go.

We arrive at the very crowded E.R. and check in.

Here are a few things that irked the heck out of me observations...

1. More than half the people there did not really need to be there. Take some Nyquil, drink a lot of water and less beer and go to bed. You will feel better in three days. The Doctor cannot do anything for your cold so quit over crowding the E.R. just because you have a runny nose. After three days if you are still feeling crapy make an appointment with your primary doctor. Seriously, your runny nose is not an emergency!

2. Bring a translator/driver if necessary and leave the rest of the village at home. The waiting room only has so many chairs and your brother, sister, nieces, nephews, sons, daughters, mother, father, wife, neighbor, aunt, uncle and drinking buddy are taking up chairs that the really sick or injured people would probably like to be able to sit in.

3. If your child is sick enough or injured enough to be in the E.R., they are sick enough or injured enough to sit their bum down in a chair and not be running all around and hanging over the back of my chair breathing their germs in my face.

4. The E.R. is a dirty, nasty, filthy, germy place. Why would you let your kid crawl around on the floor? I just sat on the very edge of my seat all night, touching as little as possible and I still felt like I needed to bathe in bleach when I got home. *shivers*

5. Whining to the security clerk every fifteen minutes is not going to get you seen any faster. Sit down and wait your turn like everyone else.

6. While pretending you can't breathe you probably shouldn't waste all your precious air by yelling across the room at the security guy about how you "really can't breathe, and need to see the doctor now!"

7. While pretending to pass out, because you could not breathe, you should keep your eyes closed. Opening them to peak to see if anyone is paying attention to your lying, narcotic seeking little bum is just going to piss off the nurse who had to walk herself into the waiting room to check on you. And most likely she will flag you as not urgent and you will get to sit there in the waiting room for the rest of the night.

8. Do not make out in the waiting room, it is not a hotel. Some people there are already throwing up. They don't need to see that.

9. Do not go stand two feet outside the automatic doors, in front of the NO SMOKING sign and smoke your cigarette, and then get pissed because you missed your turn. Some of us would like to not have to wade through your second hand smoke to get inside. Some of us would rather not smell like a stinky ash tray.

10. If you do insist on going to the E.R. for your cold. Bring some tissue with you. Don't wipe your nose on your hand and then touch the arm rest that separates our chair, and don't spit your sputum on the floor and then smear it with your boot.

11. The floor is not the trash can, Your legs and arms worked well enough to get you to the vending machine across the room, they will also work well enough to get you to the trash can three feet away.

*Note the "bad word" in the title. (Yes, Stupid is a "bad word" in our house.) I could not think of another word that worked in its place. Nothing quite seemed to sum it up as well as "Stupid".