Friday, September 03, 2004

do you know the muffin man?

I can't believe August is over. I'm not quite ready to say goodbye to summer yet, I feel like I hardly had a chance to be out in it. Not that I have any objection to fall--there's that whole fresh, back-to-school feeling about it. And the Halloween-Thanksgiving-Christmas-New Year's chain keeps the end of the year moving along at a nice clip. It's just that whole January through April tunnel of darkness that I really have a problem with. Which, I guess, maybe be a bigger problem than I thought, considering that's a third of the year that I find objectionable. Maybe my body is just wired for a warmer clime. Well, not that I'll be moving down to Texas or anything.

A scene outside the hospital Wednesday morning, as I was picking up some breakfast for me and a co-resident at one of the coffee carts:


MICHELLE
I'll have two of those chocolate chip muffins.

COFFEE CART GUY
Muffins?

MICHELE
Yes, two chocolate chip muffins.

COFFEE CART GUY
Oh, OK.
(Reaches for donut)

MICHELLE
No, a muffin, a muffin.

COFFEE CART GUY
(Reaches for cruller)

MICHELLE
No, not that, a muffin. You know...
(Makes muffin shapes in the air with her hands)

COFFEE CART GUY
Oh, yes yes, I know.
(Reaches for slice of pound cake)

MICHELLE
(Tapping on glass, pointing to muffin)
THIS thing. I want this thing, please.

COFFEE CART GUY
(Looking perplexed)
Muffin?
(Grabs muffin, put in a bag)

MICHELLE
Thank you. But actually, I need two muffins. Could you get me another one please?

COFFEE CART GUY
(Pause. Grabs bagel.)


How can you work on a coffee cart and not know what a muffin is?

Currently reading: The New York Times article about Bill Clinton's emergency CABG. I wondered why there were approximately one million and one news vans parked outside our hospital this afternoon. Now I understand. In her press statement, Hillary Clinton said, "He's in excellent hands and he's in one of the greatest hospitals in the world." And I'm proud to work there, dammit. Although I have to admit that all of this is giving me the urge to be terribly non-HIPAA compliant, maybe coasting by his room one, two, three times just to see if I can orchestrate an "accidental" glimpse of the man before Secret Service apprehends me. Only I won't really do that, because I don't want to get fired.

No comments:

Post a Comment