For those of you who follow my friend Bethany's blog, you'll understand this story. For those who do not, check it out here: http://http//youcouldbehappy-bethany.blogspot.com/
Most of the time working in a hospital involves a lot of downtime (coupled with a few hours of total panic). You can be totally busy all day, but sometimes you have very little to do.........this story is about one of those days.
I came into work bright and cranky at 7am. The morning coffee I got from McGuigins slowly burning the skin off my hand due to the shoddy coffee cups. Grab my stethoscope from my locker and, low and behold, I feel the gentle buzzing of my cell phone in my pocket. (By the way, have you ever experienced "phantom vibrating", where you think your phone is buzzing in your pocket, but it's all in your head? It's a sign of loneliness. Get over it.).
Anyway, I had a text message from Bethany that had the following pic and message:
"Your mission if you choose to accept: locate and acquire 3-4 of these pens."Simple enough, right? I mean how hard could it be? I've seen those pens a thousand times over in this place. 3-4? I can get 50!
My day begins. I wonder around intensive care (The area I am assigned to that day), doing my job and not looking around for any pens (since ICU is Bethany's area and I'm sure she already picked it clean). A little before lunch I make my way back to my department. I'm talking to the Director of Respiratory Care (my boss) in her office, and I happen to notice a nice blue click top pen. Jackpot. I make a comment about how I'm needing to borrow a pen with blue ink and flash these puppy-dog eyes of mine. She relents and hands it over. One down.
Supervisor office next. Well what do you know? Another pen sitting all alone right here. I'll have this wrapped up by lunch! I go over and look in my locker simply on a hunch and BINGO! 2 more! All done! Who's the man? I'm assuming here that pen collecting is part of the hunter-gatherer conditioning in males. Just go with it.
So that's it, right? Not much to tell. A couple of hours later I am going through my phone and look at the text she sent again.........hmmmmm........then I look at the pens I've been collecting:
Son of a!!!! Oh come on!!! This whole time?!? The wrong thing!?!? You have got to be kidding me!!!........(pause to compose myself).....ahem.
After about 15 minutes of silently cussing I set out to find the correct pens. First stop: ER.
Now the ER can be an extremely busy area. Sometimes you can walk through totally unnoticed. As I made my way through, I saw that both of the unit secretaries were using these magical pens. I suppose I could just wait until one of them got up to go somewhere and then take it, but these girls were bigger than me and I didn't wanna get caught. Puppy-dog eyes time!!! I toss the current pen I'm using in the trash and walk up to the secretary and ask her where she got the pen she is using and if I could have one. She looks around like I was asking where I could score some weed or something, stands up and has me follow her to the med room. First of all, these rooms require a badge to open the door. After that, she got a key out of another drawer and went over and unlocked a cabinet. In the cabinet was 1 (say again, 1) box of pens. A box holds about 12 total and I think there were about five. My eyes lit up immediately......until she reached in, grabbed 1 pen, handed it to me, and locked the cabinet back. She told me that they were only allowed to have a few pens because they were so expensive. I guess Bethany wasn't kidding about the quality.
I wandered over the the Cardiac Intensive Care unit next. I had a new plan. I watched the secretary like a hawk while I "got coffee". She hopped up for something and left her pen. I quickly ran over, scooped it up, and replaced it with one of the blue pens I had mistakenly collected earlier. Of course then I made like a bat outta hell and took off.
My last stop on this adventure was 6East. The pulmonary floor. Usually full of patients with tons of nurses, techs, and, you guessed it, pens. Funny thing is, I didn't see a single one. I looked and looked. Every drawer and cabinet. Nothing. Then I spotted it. The monitor tech had one. Just one. Now........I could let this go. I got 2 pens, which is apparently something to be proud of. Do I really need to get three? Do I really need to meet this challenge?.....Hi, have we met?
My "Challenge" Pose....
I walk over to the tech and begin talking. If I have one skill It's my ability to hold some one's attention for a long period of time. Lord knows what we discussed, my brain was kind of on autopilot. As we were talking, I slowly reached my hand out. Palmed the pen on the table, and ever so carefully pulled it in and slipped it in my pocket. And then......bat outta hell.
I taped them up and put them in Bethany's locker with this note:
"Enjoy, this wasn't easy. This message will self destruct in 5 seconds."
Interestingly enough this shouldn't be an entertaining story. I just had no idea I would be questing for the Holy Grail of pens.
Holy Grail Prop Replica Doesn’t Grant Eternal Life, Just Holds Paperclips, Possibly Eternally
So for all my adventuring, I certainly hope you put those pens to good use, Bethany. But please don't lose them. They may be immune to my charm next time.
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