When I first moved here, everyone encouraged me not to talk to anyone on the metro. I thought that was harsh, but I began to notice that the majority of the riders wore headphones. I have seen a few reading magazines or books but even many of them were wearing headphones. Hum?
So on my way to the baseball game tonight I had to ride the metro through about 10 stops, so I knew I had some time. I took an ICU fact book to read and study up a bit for an upcoming test that I must take. I learned that just a book alone; is not even close enough to keep someone crazy from talking to you.
All who know me, know I am a freak magnet. One stop in a lady sits down next to me with two canes. You may ask, why two canes? Well, she just got out of the hospital. Let's make this easy and call the lady Linda. Linda talked at me for 20 minutes about her health issues. I made no mention of being a nurse and I really don't believe that she saw the title of my book. I merely made the nice gesture of picking up a metro coin that fell out of her purse when she was putting her glasses away. That was the beginning of a very long journey for me.
Linda was just discharged from GW hospital. She never mentioned why she was just hospitalized but did mention that she doesn't need the metro coin because she rides for free because she is on Medicare. Why is she on Medicare? Well, let me tell you! She is on Medicare because 5 years ago she fell on an escalator and fell all the way to the bottom where the escalator did not stop and the belt broke and apparently somehow the rubber part that you hold onto, repeatedly hit her in the head for 45 minutes and her clothes were completely ripped off of her. It messed her face up really bad and she was not recognizable for quite some time. She then stated "this pretty mug you see now, was a lot of work to get back to." She also messed her right knee up so bad in the fall that she spent 5 years, 5 years doing water therapy 7 days a week. That is $240 of therapy/day. Somewhere in the mix of this her insurance quit paying one of her surgeons and he is quite miffed with her and she just saw him during this last hospitalization and she doesn't understand why he holds a grudge. It's not her fault her insurance company stopped paying her bills. Linda also has some injured vertebrae in her neck that are becoming arthritic. She also has two rods in her back. She was apparently becoming a bit psychotic during this admission and they threatened sending her to the psych unit. Her words, "I will behave, but if one of those crazy patients talk to me, I'm gonna mess them up." And the cherry on top of all of this is she has some diabetic ulcers on her titties!!!! What the heck lady?! After listening to all of this and chewing on her vicious cigarette breath, all I could gather to say, "Wow! That is quite the story!" As I pulled out a cinnamon disc for myself I offered her one too. Her comment, "I mentioned my diabetic ulcers on my titties didn't I?" Guess I will keep the candy for me, sorry. Wow! Lesson learned. People watch but talk to no one!
I also wanted to mention that I am pretty sure that in driver's ed here they teach the 10 and horn hand setting. Because, here when the light turns green, you literally have .00000000000000001 seconds to hit the gas and get your car moving forward before someone will politely honk their horn to let you know that the light is green and has been for .0000000000000001 seconds now. Come on! This makes me laugh every time I hear a horn honk.
Good Night Scouts!
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