eat the damn cheese

I stood in disbelief at the Dunkin Donuts nearest the hospital, the one that all of us Strong Stars frequent frequently for our coffee-before-work. If you are a good colleague and you work in layering tapering shift world like I do (meaning our shifts don't' follow normal hospital shifts.... we layer in and out one by one by one) you give a call ahead and see if anyone wants anything.

I had just finished a great three hour ride and was hanging on the back deck with the guys when I got the call from work. It was my friend Tracy, calling me at 5pm asking if I was coming to work tonight, since I was scheduled at 4pm. We laughed, sometimes I confuse 4p-8p and 8p-midnight. The fact that I was getting the call at 5pm was a good sign that they weren't busy (for once). So I took the coffee orders and headed on in.

So I stood in absolute disbelief at Dunkin Donuts with my order in hand, quite simple I might add..... when the girl at the counter could not understand me. She said she did not speak English.

What? I pointed out the drinks I had written down, she didn't understand my code. She spoke with her colleague who also didn't speak much English. Iced coffee with cream...... Iced tea....... it made no sense to them

So I settled on a box of Joe. Which itself seems to cause an uproar accompanied with the rolling of eyes and the sighs...... not a box of JOE! Geez..... it was the only thing I could order that wasn't greeted with a shrug.

I asked if they perhaps had an interpreter phone. We have one on every unit at Strong. Speak Russian? No problem. from Somalia? No problem! We plug in the phone, dial the language in need, and communicate through an interpreter.

No interpreter phone at Dunkin Donuts.

This is weird. I thought.

Equally as weird was the one kindest family on earth that I took care of that night. As a rule people who come to our Emergency Dept (Pediatrics) are not always that nice to us. When I can't define "How long" they get irate. It's my goal to always keep my families informed of what's going on. A trauma may be holding up X ray, the Attending might still need to see them.

When a family stopped me in the middle of caring for their daughter to thank me for taking such good care of her..... I had to stop myself from immediately deeming them as weird.

With my colleagues I noted that people can be so darn cruel in this world that it seems strange when someone is just plain....... nice.

We can get so used to fighting the fight that when we don't' have to...... we wonder.... what's up with that?????

How about this....... sometimes people are just....... nice. And sometimes we just have to throw back our heads and laugh when the folks at the coffee shop don't speak English, or in my yoga class when I cue the wrong side..... or when your bagel comes through toasted with cream cheese instead of plain.

Those are the small things. The little things that tie us into our various tizzies.

But really, was getting a box of joe such a horrible thing? Heck no. We are nurses, we roll with any punch, and where I work that sometimes means literally.

Take a look around at your world today. What ignites that inner tizzy within you? Does it really matter? Or is it your cue to step back, laugh and eat a little cream cheese.

Eat the cream cheese.