The hospital during the holiday was shoved wall-to-wall with people, everyone scrambling for flu shots and end-of-year check-ups and a variety of holiday-inspired calamity that made the halls buzz with wild stories, each one ending, or beginning, with a chuckle and an ironic quip: Tis the season, eh? Tis the season for electric burns from lights and cooking pies; tis the season for bruises, twisted ankles, broken legs from falling off roofs or down ladders; tis the season for an enema or two, inspired by an eggnog-and-fruit-cake constipated bowel.
Gotta love a good enema on Christmas Eve.
Wasn’t Christmas Eve yet though, which meant plenty of enemas to come. Charlie got bounced from service to service, sent scurrying to where he was needed most. This was the way Charlie liked it. He liked a good to-do list. He liked thinking two, three steps at a time, he liked hauling huge charts around and he liked menial work too. He even liked enemas (okay, maybe, like was a strong word--)
Didn’t like waiting room duty though.
That was the wild wild west. The chairs were chalk-full and people were angry. Family members were angry, stressed-out, tired mums were angry, patients who kept getting pushed and pushed were angry. But here he was, bounced off to waiting room duty. Calling names. Passing out clipboards. Getting, er, screamed at.
Charlie tried to keep up with the Christmas Spirit though (because at least nothing was on fire yet-- he kept having a dream about fire, fire that climbed up story after story, devouring everything in its path. He could hear little kids crying if he closed his eyes too long).
He grabbed his next clipboard though (they were already nearly thirty minutes behind schedule) and hit the scene: “Er, Mr. Grass? Mr. Simon Grass?” he called.