One Ringy Dingy, Two Ringy Dingies

Hmmmm....I wonder how many people who read my posts actually know where this post's title comes from....

I'm lying on a 'bed' in the ER. I've been there about 5 hours (not in the bed, but the ER). I've had a run-in with a nurse with control issues and I've won. No arguing. Just the good 'ol passive response of ignoring her and doing what I wanted. OK, sidebar: I HATE it when people try to use their titles to throw their weight around, and she had plenty of weight to throw. She told me to put on the gown and I said I'd rather not. She said I must and I said I was already braless and could pull up my shirt. She said it was hospital policy. What a bunch of crap. I proceeded to ignore her and climb up on the bed. She said the doctor wouldn't see me if I didn't have on a gown. Liar!! When I didn't respond to that she said she'd leave it up to my nurse. Then she ran her big xxx out to find him. I asked myself why I even cared about the gown. I mean, why was it such a big deal to put it on? Because at that point I was DETERMINED that I wasn't going to do it even if they called the hospital administrator to my room!! I would have rather been naked than wear that horrible scrap of fabric which is not only cheap and scratchy but humiliating as well. I was swearing and crying (I only swore in my head). Can you hear the melt-down coming? I didn't look good and I sure as hec didn't feel good! I wasn't about to comply.After about 30 minutes of crying (sometime I'm going to have to blog about assertiveness issues because I definitely have them. I can count on two hands the few times in my life when I've actually been assertive and not just passive/aggressive. Usually I'm just a big woos, except for that time I became a mother bear in a run-in with an excuse for a vp at the jr high over some issues with Clayton. I was actually assertive then. More like livid and 'You so much as look cross-eyed at my child and I'll twist your head so far around you'll...' well, you get the idea. Yes, I admit that in the re-telling of this I derive a certain prideful unchristian-like pleasure remembering that lovely afternoon...that guy so frozen he didn't even breathe...three men in the room all with their mouths open down to the floor...Wonder Woman!!...Sigh...)

So anyway, my nurse was a wonderful person. He didn't say one word about that horrid gown and I've decided that I will never wear one again! Take that! I've discovered that being defiant is not only empowering, it can be fun. Huh! So it's only taken me fifty years to figure that one out. My friend Kathy is applauding as she reads this. Yes, one is never too old to learn. So thanks for indulging my rant and now I'll finish what I actually started to write about:

I'm in bed in the ER and I've met my nurse (Don) and he's cool and I'm done crying. I'm feeling much better. I'm looking around, wondering when the doctor will be in. Patience is definitely one of my virtues. Then I hear a phone ringing in the nurse's station. It's right outside my 'room.' It rings. And it rings. And it rings, and rings and rings and rings. Why isn't anyone answering the phone? Yes, it was a weekend and the ER was busy, but I laid there and watched nurses and doctors and transporters and techs walk back and forth and no one picked up the phone. Ring...By this time it has been ringing for at least five minutes. I think to myself, 'Whoever's calling is not going to hang up until that phone gets answered.' Still, the phone rings and still, every one ignores it. Ring...ring...It was as though everyone was waiting for everyone else to answer it. Ring...Boy, whoever is calling is determined to get through. That's something that Rachel would do, I think to myself. She wouldn't be angry either. Ring...She'd just bite down like a pit bull on a bone and think, 'I'm not hanging up until someone answers this phone.' Ring...ring...ring...Now I'm getting annoyed. I've already had a little taste of assertiveness so I'm feeling a little boldness. "PHO-ONE!" I yell. Too quiet. No one hears that. I try again. "Hey! Is anyone going to answer the phone?" I am louder this time and it feels good. Now I realize that the phone ringing is not my problem, however, a hospital is a public place and surely I'm not the only patient annoyed by the constant ringing. Suddenly my nurse comes running in. "Don!" I say, "What's wrong with the staff? Don't they answer the phones around here?" He reaches behind my head, picks up the phone, pushes a button and hands it to me--with a huge grin on his face.
" Wha...for me??" I don't know what to say. I'm not a mother bear anymore. I'm a mouse. Or maybe a piece of mouse's poop..."Hel...hello?"
"Marci, is that you?"
"Rachel? Is that you?" (Why am I not surprised!)
"Wow, that rang a long time, but I'd already decided, 'I'm not hanging up this phone until someone answers!'"
I tell her what happened and we laugh for a long time. Two weeks later we're still laughing. But really, I can swear the ringing was coming from the nurses' station...and no, I wasn't there for a hearing problem, but maybe I should have been.