They don't pay us enough

...said the nurse, at the ER today. She wasn't kidding.

(No, it was not me that had to go. Another adult in my family needed to be there, they are basically going to be just fine but had a problem that wouldn't wait until tomorrow.

That family member offered me a bribe in exchange for being driven to the ER and staying with them. After the first couple of items shown below, I started a list on my Palm pilot containing my demands. Every time something else weird or depressing happened I added to the list. It's up to about five really good bribes. )

Here are some of the people I saw today while I spend THREE HOURS waiting (playing solitaire on my Palm pilot and listening to Phil Vassar on same and playing golf with the cards I stole from John):

• guy about 18 with nothing really visibly wrong with him, just hanging around and making me wonder what his deal was- he was in line to be seen, but just sat there casually chatting on his cell phone and eyeing my purse
• guy with a kid (maybe 3yrs old) who clearly had pinkeye but got bored waiting around and left - real nice jerk, but someone outdid you later
• the guy who walked in with his hand bandaged and bleeding all over - ughhh. For this, and because the word "pus" was uttered in my presence several times today, I am getting a new game for my palm pilot -- it was only obsessively playing solitaire that kept me from running away. I'm debating between Monopoly and Scrabble.
• older woman all alone, wearing her bathrobe and white sneakers....don't know if she had stuff underneath the robe but we were sad because she was all alone
• young kid about 10 years old who came in, proceeded to have really loud, long-lasting dry heaves into the garbage can five feet away from me, and then whimpered in pain because his back was hurting him so much.... his mother said a couple of things to the nurse that I couldn't help but overhear.... it made me mad and surprised that she didn't bring him in yesterday, until I realized she had no insurance (because the receptionist was apparently used to reapeating whatever was said to her VERY LOUDLY). The dry heaves part got me the use of a lovely new Coach purse for a week.
• the guy with another kid who was bored, had a more or less minor problem that they wanted to deal with, and when kid complained too much the father actually said "I'm going to give you away to someone." He then turned, to point to ME and say "there, there's your new mother. hahahahahah." I looked at him in horror and then he said to the kid (I swear) "No, I'll just give you to Michael Jackson". Fabulous. For that one my bribe is a manicure.

At least the doctor turned out to be cute AND funny.