What Goes Around

I walked into the overflowing radiology waiting room, rubbing my hands with gel sanitizer for at least the fifth time since arriving at the hospital. I'm not a germaphobe, I swear, it's just that those little wall dispensers are everywhere and the constant stream of coughing, bleeding people wheeling past has a way of making a quick scrub always seem like a good idea.

While the door swung slowly shut behind me, my eyes darted around the room in search of a precious empty seat. As much as my screaming back wanted me to sit! sit anywhere! sit on someone's lap!, I forced myself to be a bit more cautious.

I immediately ruled out a few available spaces -- next to the woman in the burqa on the one-and-a-half person love seat (I'm sure she wouldn't have minded, I just felt almost offensively male at the thought of it); amidst the loudmouthed gaggle of retirees bragging to each other about their texting abilities (no explanation needed, I hope); in between two children who appeared to have very recently been very sick all over their T-shirts (likewise).

Finally, mercifully, I spotted an open chair in the far corner next to an overgrown-looking fake plant. I gingerly eased myself into the seat and looked around for the nearest sanitizer dispenser, feeling about due for a refresher. Not seeing one - how was this possible? - I tried to keep from staring at the Vomit Twins and leafed through the tattered pages of a June 2005 Newsweek.

This Newsweek, an even more ancient People magazine, and a "Say No To Tobacco" pamphlet later, I finally got called in and had my X-ray and CT scans performed. On my way out, I asked if I could get a couple of copies of the images from the scans (one to send to my doctor uncle, and one to add to my open-in-case-of-Lyme-disease medical file).

The middle-aged nurse - "Tami," I think - who I'd charmed earlier by referring to the preposterous outfit the orderly had instructed me to change into - underwear, flip-flops, and two hospital gowns, one forward, one backward ("so nobody sees your underwear") - as my "Jesus costume" (picture the entire ensemble, and add in a 4-month beard), was more than happy to oblige. She said she'd call ahead to the Film Library on the first floor, and that everything would be ready when I showed up.

Well, I don't want to blame someone as kind and comedically-discerning as Tami, but something definitely got crossed up somewhere between the 8th and 1st floors. I showed up at the Film Library just like I was supposed to, but no one was expecting my arrival, and nothing was ready. The attendant (librarian?), a pouty, slothlike specimen named Beth, stared at me through her locked office door with the enthusiasm of someone about to have her toenails ripped out.

When it became painfully apparent that, yes, I was there to see her, and no, I wasn't conversant in her personal dialect of American Sign Language, she sighed, shuffled over to the door, unlocked it, and opened it narrowly enough that I wouldn't feel invited to step inside. I apologized for the inconvenience and explained my request as politely as possible.

"Two copies?" she asked, looking at me like I'd asked her to do a backflip off the top of her desk. "Two copies?" she asked again, wielding her repetition like a mighty whiny sword against the perceived outrageousness of my request. "We'll have to charge you for the second one and it'll take a while, 30 or 40 minutes at least," she said.

For a brief moment, I felt a nearly overpowering urge to headbutt her in the brain. I'm not a violent person - to recap: not a germaphobe and not violent - but a relatively sane soul can only take so much.

Here I was, a patient in a hospital, asking a staff member to do, oh I don't know, exactly what her employer pays her to, and she acts like I'm the one who's somehow being unreasonable. And 30 to 40 minutes (at least!) to burn two CDs? They do appendectomies in less time than that! I'd literally make better time if I had a surgeon physically insert two copies of my scans into my abdomen than if I waited around for Beth Gates and her supercomputer.

Still, as it almost always somehow does, the logical 10% of my brain reeled in the emotional remainder and restrained me from any headbutting and unnecessary-if-lightning-fast surgical procedures. It convinced me that, as immediately satisfying as these two options might seem, simply pretending to be nice was my best chance of getting the two things that I most wanted out of the situation: my CDs and my revenge.

This is why I overlooked Beth's theatrics, apologized for interrupting her "busy" schedule, and thanked her for her "incredibly kind" help. It's why I sat in the lobby across the hall and watched CNN's round-the-clock coverage of Steve McNair's death and Michael Jackson's life for over an hour without complaint.

It's also why, when she finally emerged and wordlessly handed me my two discs, I waited until she slowly - oh-so-slowly - turned around and slithered back into her office, then I taped a "Free Candy, Just Knock!" sign, at optimal child viewing height, right next to her door.

I'd like to think the Vomit Twins were all over it on their way out.