The Weekend
Friday night, Eli 5.6 started peeing every fifteen minutes. This is the early alarm for a bladder infection, and given that it was almost 5 p.m., it meant that we were headed for the emergency room as soon as he said it hurt to pee.Which he did, about thirty minutes later.
Bladder infections can be really, really bad for kids because of the pain. There's no way to just drink cranberry juice and see if it gets better or something like that. Five-year olds need antibiotics right away.
As it turned out, even though we waited over an hour to see a doctor, it was worth it. Eli started on a course of antibiotics that night and was spared almost all of the pain that accompanies that kind of infection.
The reason I'm mentioning this, though is because of a sign we saw in the examination room. Here's what it said:
Did you know that studies show that 16%-42% of patients fall more than once during a hospital stay?
What?
Did you know that 21%-75% of people who read that sign get totally confused? Based on those numbers, I was expecting an orderly to be yelling "MAN DOWN!" every fifteen seconds.
Oh, plus the title at the top of the sign said "Catch a Falling Star." There was a yellow star with a movement trail behind it. All it was missing was a little red head wound on the top point of the star.
Then, on Sunday, Gloria called at 2 p.m., after she had picked up Eli from Mom's house (where he goes for a visit on Sunday). "I have another flat tire," she said.
I always wanted my wife to develop some hobbies. I didn't know she'd pick having flat tires.
Ironically, she has the flat tire less than a hundred feet away--from a tire place. It's closed, of course.
This time, Gloria calls AAA. I need to drive out there to give her my car, though, so that she and Eli can go about their business and not just sit there waiting. And when I get there, she says it's going to be about another forty-five minutes before AAA is supposed to show up.
You guessed it--I can either spend forty-five minutes sitting in the car reading, or I can change the tire.
Which I did.
The formula for how long AAA will take to show up and change a tire is this: the length of time it would take for you to change the tire, plus twenty minutes.
And they did show up. Right when I was putting the jack away.
So as I'm walking from the tire place to a shopping center about half a mile away, I'm walking through the parking lot of a very low-grade used car place, and I see a sign. For several seconds, I think it says this: "HAVE YOU BEEN RETARDED LATELY?"
Well, no. Although that's not what it said. It actually said "HAVE YOU BEEN REWARDED LATELY?"
Again, given that the temperature was in the low forties, the wind was blowing, and it was raining, I'd say no.
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