Thank goodness for my friend, Slim Randles, who is always willing to be my Wednesday’s Guest, even at the last minute. My week got off to a late start as I returned home from a trip to Austin late on Monday. Then I picked right back up with an editing job and almost forgot to do the blog.
Before I turn the spot over to Slim, I do want to mention what a wonderful time I had celebrating with all the authors whose books won the “best of” honor from the Texas Association of Authors. The press conference on the capital steps was cancelled because of rain, but the rest of the events for DEAR Texas Day went as planned. We had a wonderful banquet on Saturday, and a signing on Sunday at Malvern Books. What a wonderful little bookstore, with a great staff.
Okay, now here is Slim:
We hadn’t seen our pal, Steve the cowboy, at the philosophy counter at the Mule Barn truck stop for a while. After a week’s absence, he showed back up for his daily ration of caffeine, and it was obvious he’d lost some weight, if not attitude.
“Hospital again,” he said.
We nodded. Steve has internal workings situations from time to time. Usually, these happen during a cold snap when the bunkhouse needs extra firewood. He swears this is just a coincidence.
He appreciates doctors a lot, it turns out. Especially young, cute, female-lady-type doctors. He has two of them that look after him. To quote Steve: “Cuter’n a pocketful of baby mouses!”
But nurses? That’s another thing entirely.
“They run this nurse in on me,” he said, “to give me one of them baths, you know?”
Doc grinned. “Cute, was she, Steve?”
“Cute? Doc, her face looked like it had worn out two bodies. She had the exact aerodynamics of a milk carton, and the human kindness of a meter maid. I didn’t stand a chance!”
“Food any better this year?” asked Herb. We had heard all about 12,000 mile-an-hour toast last year and how they had used it as heat shields on the space shuttle.
“Boys, they don’t have food in that hospital. They just want to tease you by telling you it’s edible stuff. You just take our special Sunday dinner. They called it ribeye steak.”
We waited while he sucked down another cup of coffee and asked Loretta to bring him something that wasn’t good for his situation.
“Ribeye sounds good, Steve.”
“Ribeye? RIBEYE? Say listen, guys, I don’t know what gopher they cut that off of, but it was sure as sin a long-distance gopher. That was so small and tough … I’ll bet that steak had more miles on it than my pickup.”
Do you have a hospital experience you are willing to share in a comment? I double-dare you to tell us all about it, and it doesn’t have to be a negative story. Nurses are much nicer than the one Steve met. I’ll share if you do.
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Brought to you by the Home Country Podcast
So glad to hear you had a good time in Austin.
I had an outpatient “procedure” yesterday that required general anesthetic so I was a bit nervous. Can’t say enough good stuff about the great nurses who saw me through it.
Nurses are much nicer than Steve implied. I think he did that for the humor effect.
Glad your procedure went well.