There was this one time I scratched up my cornea real bad and had to go to the hospital. Dealing with medical bureaucracy is always very frustrating to me, and that combined with the pain had me in a very bad mood. I was even crying.
I had to wait quite a while for the doctor to see me, but fortunately the nurse who was helping me had an excellent bedside manner and went out of her way to distract me. She expertly did this by getting me talking about books I'd read recently.
I went all in on criticizing the last book I'd read. I don't remember what it was, but I really hadn't liked it, and I denigrated it as "Misery Porn". And she was like "Hmm, that sounds interesting, tell me more". So I gave a general plot synopsis. As I was telling her that most of the characters were immigrant miners, she interrupted me to say "That's interesting, I didn't realize that there were mines in Missouri".
And at that moment time stopped for me and I realized that the entire time I'd been talking about the book, she'd been assuming I was talking about porn set in Missouri. I had just assumed that she had understood from context that when I said "Misery Porn", I meant "A story that is gratuitously depressing so that readers will think it's deeper than it really is".
Rather than being disappointed in our miscommunication, I was instead impressed with the level on non judgement she was showing me. Having a whole ass cheerful conversation about Missouri themed porn just to help a patient. I think about her all the time.
turnnoffyourmind
jbbartram-illu
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