Friday, March 9, 2012

The Nursing Staff

Until this last round of chemo I did not fully understand what profoundly lousy nurses cats make.

It's not just that they won't refill your water bottle for you or nudge up the temperature on your hot pad. It's not even that they stand at the end of the bed, hollering, as though you, the sick patient, are to be castigated for not leaving your pager on.

It's that they revel in your helplessness. What fine furniture you make in your weakened state! You hardly move, yet still emit heat! What darling little bottles of pills you've left on the bedside stand, to be knocked off and rolled under the bed with a gleeful paw! If they lick your wan brow, it's not to comfort you, but because your sweat has such an interesting tang just now. And they know you will not so much as squeak when they make a mighty leap from the windowsill onto this handy outcropping that is your head.

When you finally drift off--should they decide to allow you to drift off--they will break into the liquor cabinet and hack the V-Chip so they can watch porn on cable.

Never, ever leave your sick loved ones under the care of the cats.

1 comment:

  1. Oh my, did this make me laugh! I promise I will never leave ANYONE in the care of cats, though in my not-weakened state I might enjoys such things as you describe. Take care, dear friend!

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