Thursday, November 20, 2008

Paging Dr. ANYONE


And now, for your reading pleasure, a list of things about Kern Medical Center’s emergency waiting room that bothered me last night:

* The elderly bum who sat across from me who was mumbling and laughing to himself in the most disturbing way imaginable.

* The not-as-elderly bum who sat in a giant puddle of coffee next to me, apologized, left, came back and sat in the same puddle, and apologized again as if the puddle of coffee belonged to me.

* The fact that I’m not being facetious by calling the last two people bums. They were, in fact, homeless people hanging out in the emergency waiting room.

* That the internal temperature of the waiting room felt like 106 degrees with 92% humidity.

* The sheer number of screaming children who appeared to belong to no one.

* The sheer number of said screaming children crawling around on the very, very, very off-white floor and subsequently sticking their fingers in their mouths.

* The fact that not one single person was called into the emergency room during the hour and a half I was there.

* The combined smell of cheese and mildew that permeated the room.

* The guy singing country lyrics to his girlfriend without the slightest hint of irony.

* That I can't help but refer to the hospital as "KFC."

* That my son could have been dying and the inattentive nursing staff wouldn’t have given a crap.

* The mere fact that I was stuck there and not at some other, much nicer and more helpful, hospital.

4 comments:

  1. Oh.

    I can't imagine. We are so lucky in this neighborhood.

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  2. @jessicagottlieb Kern Medical Center is also known by its street name, "Oh Hells No."

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  3. when you did the bright kite check in, it said you were at the mental hospital there. a real fine place to be after all...

    ahhhh.

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  4. Ugh, screaming kids bother me as much as the annoying parents that let them behave that way in public! For some reason screaming kids tend to follow my hubby everywhere we go...Boooo kids!

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