Snapshot (1392 hits)
Category: NoneLabels: crapnon-fiction
Rating: 1.72 on 43 reviews (Rate this item) (V)
Submitted by Circe <fickle.muse.at.gmail.com> (View user info) at 2007-02-06 09:37:11 EST
It's not any cooler outside at night. Even at three in the ungodly morning, it's so hot that walking outside the refrigerated sterility of the emergency department is like being turkey-slapped with a hot water bottle. And even at three in the ungodly morning, there are other parents dotted around the perimeter of the hospital grounds, smoking with that furtive guilty pleasure that seems to characterize smokers now. Even on five a day, there's guilt because I haven't managed to quit completely yet. We have to stand on the roadside to smoke. There's a by-law. We are modern-day pariahs but, as we are reminded with thoughtful frequency, it's our own stupid fault.
I'd rather be inside. There's Discovery channel in the parents' lounge up on 9A and the bitter gritty coffee is free. I've worked out how to make a reasonable mocha latte with the machine - mix one cup each of black coffee and hot chocolate in my GJ thermos mug and top it up with the half-carton of milk someone left unlabelled in the fridge and the sugar packets I swiped at breakfast. It doesn't sound like much but it's my most noteworthy achievement this week, so what say you keep your blissfully ignorant disdain to yourself?
Ms Gastric Band 2007 is sitting in my spot again. I'm going to start pouring coffee on that bench and bringing a towel to sit on. She keeps forgetting she's already spoken to me and every time I see her she gives me her life story all over again. Her half-Aboriginal daughter has run away at 15, her son is in hospital with boils, and she's lost 78 kilos in 6 months with this gastric band so she needs surgery to take off the loose skin. She lifts up her shirt and grabs the skirt of loose flesh at her waist with an expression of martyred pride. She can't eat solid food. She's the happiest person here. She met a guy on Lavalife chat and, she tells me with her face alight, he has his own car. The fact that she sees me as belonging to whatever social rung she occupies fills me with a dark and awful hilarity. I wish her the best and escape from the sicksweet smell of her - she has so much loose skin that she gets fungal growths, she tells me proudly, and then eyes my own less-than-perfect body and says she can give me her doctor's number.
I know this place. I know that the light blue armchairs are easiest to sleep on, because the dark blue have this hard bar in the lower back. I know that the only parent-accessible shower in the hospital is down on Three and that the showerhead is split, so you need to take an extra washcloth to drape over the broken part or water sprays at the ceiling and gets your neatly folded clothes wet. I know that since they phased out chocolates, snack foods, and soft drink from the vending machines the only place you can get a sugar fix is ICU, where they're selling chocolate and coke to raise funds.
I want to go home. I'm getting weird in here. I keep cleaning things, like the playroom and the arcade machine on Seven, and I spent the better part of the time before dawn last night bleaching the floors in the parents' lounge. Every time I get in the elevator and there's nobody else in there, I take a 2 millimetre square piece of adhesive bandage and tape it to the floor in the back left corner. I'm making a mosaic. I keep expecting it to be cleaned off but it hasn't yet. I cut the squares from a roll of bandage a nurse left in the twins' bathroom. I do it in the parents' lounge after midnight.
On Australia Day there were sixteen of us watching the fireworks from the ninth floor bathroom window. There was no airconditioning and it stank of sweat and disinfectant but we stayed there, silent and staring, for half a hour. I don't know about anyone else, but I was praying for a rocket to hit one of the news helicopters. None of them did. This is why I don't pray about anything important.
User Reviews
Submitted by Alter (user info) at 2007-09-26 22:12:15 EDT (#)
Ranking: 2
No, Comment.
Submitted by Soley_Trinity (user info) at 2007-04-02 05:50:50 EDT (#)
Ranking: 2
Here's hoping you and yours are well.
Submitted by Fey (user info) at 2007-04-02 04:52:47 EDT (#)
Ranking: 2
No Comment
Submitted by The_Drake (user info) at 2007-02-19 11:02:21 EST (#)
Ranking: -2
What The Drake wants is a SNAPPERshot.
He would also settle for a SNATCHshot.
THE DRAKE!!!!!
Submitted by Susie_Derkins (user info) at 2007-02-19 10:44:13 EST (#)
Ranking: 2
Oathmeal is a sad sack of steaming dogshit that needs other venues in which to vent his 'roid rage.
Submitted by Manitou (user info) at 2007-02-18 11:28:36 EST (#)
Ranking: -2
Auto -2 fat whore
Submitted by Blinkish (user info) at 2007-02-07 02:45:56 EST (#)
Ranking: 2
good thoughts your way
Submitted by Snare (user info) at 2007-02-07 02:09:18 EST (#)
Ranking: 2
The boy was six weeks old when we took him in for a little brain surgery.
Having a kid in hospital is teh major suck.
Best of health to you and your family.
Submitted by Stagger_Lee (user info) at 2007-02-06 22:53:13 EST (#)
Ranking: 2
No Comment
Submitted by fried-green-potatoes (user info) at 2007-02-06 22:35:52 EST (#)
Ranking: 2
Hope you make it home soon.
Submitted by MyNameIsTim (user info) at 2007-02-06 21:14:25 EST (#)
Ranking: 1
very solid, but i was kind of dissapointed that it wasn't about hockey.
Submitted by JulsInsane (user info) at 2007-02-06 20:56:56 EST (#)
Ranking: 2
Hope everything is well Circe
Submitted by forensicgirl3 (user info) at 2007-02-06 20:44:48 EST (#)
Ranking: 2
Find out what Ms. Gastric Band's favorite food is and then eat it in front of her.
Submitted by Danger_Ranger (user info) at 2007-02-06 20:39:10 EST (#)
Ranking: 2
"This is why I don't pray about anything important."
I think you need to have a modicum of faith in order for prayer to work - providing it does. I have none - or very little, so don't pray anymore either, or at least when I do I finish with a 'yeah well, whatever' shrug. I've even taken to blaspheming, which I once tried to curb, you know just in case I might have my arse smote during the alledged second coming, I'd be all running away to the nearest spot mass baptism and He'd be, "YOU! RANGER!" KA-POW!!! - right up my clacker. "That's for all the name taking in vain stuff captain crispy" He'd snigger, and then turn and look for apollo, not because apollo's any more of a heathen than most people here, but just because he'd be easy to spot.
Anyway since I've been saying jesus all the time my mum seems to be slightly 'on-the-up' (reverse psychology, *rolls eyes at god*). I hope your girls are well.
Submitted by shandythedog (user info) at 2007-02-06 17:56:10 EST (#)
Ranking: 0
are you professor fuckface?
his review being the first on your first post in two months is just uncanny - and his comments, combined with your post, somehow encapsulate the beauty of ubersite.
do you have the phone number for the skin-fold woman? i own my own car AND it is has three months rego!
Submitted by MyTeeOne (user info) at 2007-02-06 14:42:25 EST (#)
Ranking: 1
This was good but it needed something more from the main character. I saw what she loathed, I think I wasnted to know what she loved.
I've had a few people in my life get the GB surgery. They're all much happier now, but the skin hanging there like a bag of meat is disturbing.
Submitted by hot_pocket (user info) at 2007-02-06 13:52:34 EST (#)
Ranking: 1
i only now have a slight idea about what you do and where you live.
this was cool tho, in a detached kind of drag on kind of way
Submitted by icarus1987 (user info) at 2007-02-06 13:30:43 EST (#)
Ranking: 2
My MIL's in the hospital with one thing or another. I keep hoping she'll die.
Submitted by KindaNews (user info) at 2007-02-06 13:27:03 EST (#)
Ranking: 2
No Comment
Submitted by JonnyX (user info) at 2007-02-06 12:45:56 EST (#)
Ranking: 2
hospitals suck.
I'd much rather hear a light and amusing anecdote about the Dutchman - surely he's done something comical lately, eh?
Submitted by EmoJean (user info) at 2007-02-06 12:09:37 EST (#)
Ranking: 2
I miss reading your stuff.
Peace.
Submitted by TigerLilly (user info) at 2007-02-06 12:06:41 EST (#)
Ranking: 2
No Comment
Submitted by Avals (user info) at 2007-02-06 11:59:55 EST (#)
Ranking: 2
What?
Submitted by TheUniter (user info) at 2007-02-06 11:45:22 EST (#)
Ranking: 2
.
Submitted by TheUniter (user info) at 2007-02-06 11:45:07 EST (#)
Ranking: 1
Submitted by BLITZKREIG_BOB (user info) at 2007-02-06 11:18:46 EST (#)
Ranking: 2
The ambience of hospitals is almost as bad as actually having to be admitted to one.
Submitted by thorpe (user info) at 2007-02-06 11:05:57 EST (#)
Ranking: 2
I hope the twins cope better than you, and by that I mean better than you seem to be coping, as opposed to hoping you cope worse than the twins however much they might cope.
That's not much to hope for though since there is only so much they can clean/smoke right now.
Also, give me back my book, bitch.
Submitted by thorpe (user info) at 2007-02-06 10:55:43 EST (#)
Ranking: 2
I read this three times.
Submitted by Orgasmatron (user info) at 2007-02-06 10:55:42 EST (#)
Ranking: 2
Turkey-slapped, huh?
Submitted by Snark (user info) at 2007-02-06 10:55:31 EST (#)
Ranking: 2
Your very best writing always seems to come from real life experience.
I'm sending you happy healthy family vibes right now. I'm beaming them right through the center of the earth. They should reach you by Monday provided they aren't bitten by any of the horde of poisonous creepy fucking crawlies you people live with down there.
*shudder*
Love ya Circe.
Submitted by itchy (user info) at 2007-02-06 10:27:07 EST (#)
Ranking: 2
No Comment
Submitted by Method (user info) at 2007-02-06 10:25:59 EST (#)
Ranking: 2
When is Shrek 3 coming out?
Submitted by apollo88 (user info) at 2007-02-06 10:25:26 EST (#)
Ranking: 2
I hope all is well.
Submitted by sicosemen (user info) at 2007-02-06 10:04:17 EST (#)
Ranking: 2
No Comment
Submitted by scourge (user info) at 2007-02-06 10:02:50 EST (#)
Ranking: 2
and i guess if anyone at this site is worth e-jizz anymore it's you. well, you or snark.
certainly not me.
Submitted by DeathJester (user info) at 2007-02-06 10:01:23 EST (#)
Ranking: 2
Consider yourself Roy'd.
Submitted by Susie_Derkins (user info) at 2007-02-06 10:00:42 EST (#)
Ranking: 2
If you're going to pray for anything, pray for Ms Gastric Band to get flesh eating disease. Then she can stop bitching about having to go for surgery to remove her extra skin.
Submitted by scourge (user info) at 2007-02-06 09:59:51 EST (#)
Ranking: 2
hmmm...
i don't pray because nobody is listening anyway. that way i get the jump on all the suckers talking to themselves.
Submitted by rad1101 (user info) at 2007-02-06 09:53:25 EST (#)
Ranking: 2
did someone mention jizz?
Submitted by Circe (user info) at 2007-02-06 09:51:56 EST (#)
Ranking: 0
Uh, yeah, Sam... this is really being mobbed by my legions of die-hard fans.
Sheesh, dude.
Submitted by iddqd (user info) at 2007-02-06 09:43:00 EST (#)
Ranking: 0
bukake alert! run lynn! run while you still can before the thick, gossamer strands of sticky, sticky e-glue bind you back here.
Submitted by Coyote (user info) at 2007-02-06 09:39:28 EST (#)
Ranking: 2
Hospitals would be much more tolerable if they got some good coffee in there.
Submitted by professorfuckface (user info) at 2007-02-06 09:39:22 EST (#)
Ranking: 0
you are fat