TRIALS AT ST TIMMY'S 30
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THE TRIALS AT ST TIMMY'S --
The Continued Saga of Paul Ess's Rehabilitation
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I've been in this new tardfarm[tm] for two months now and I'm
commencing to write screechjob[tm] number thirty! Every time I
finish one of these episodes I think there cannot possibly be
anything more of any interest whatever to write. Two days later
I have my craw full again, so stand by for yet another big hork.
Roger put me to bed again last night, but without smearing my
hiney with shaving cream, dammit! I was starting to like that.
It doesn't do a thing, but when you are as anally queer as I am,
it's somethin' that spells lovin'.
Everything was fine and dandy until one a.m. when I woke up
needing to pee. Nobody had been in to see if George and I were
dead or alive, and so the pisspot fill I did around nine was
still there hanging on the rail. I hit the button for the nurse
to come empty it so I can fill it right up again, natch. Then it
will sit there and get cold again until I have to pee another
time, when I will ring to have it emptied, and blah blah blah.
You'd think when you give them a ladle of piss that's ice cold,
it would tell them we're out of synch here. Nah. Too close to
rocket science.
Wait a minute! I don't hear that quiet eeeeeeeeeeeee sound
that's generated whenever anyone pulls a bell. No, the cord is
plugged into the wall but I can't reach the plug to wiggle it. I
do the next best thing and yank the whole mess out of the wall.
The last time I had to do this, the fail-safe feature made sure
the alarm was sent. Didn't work this time. Damnation and
hellfire. I gently wake George (by voice, you pervs) and tell
him I am going to yell for a nurse (just so he won't freak).
I start in (through a closed door and over The Chink's ranting
from next door). NURSE! NURSE! NURSE! NURSE! It doesn't do
any good. George gets up and takes his footed walking stick with
him as he teeters to the door, opens it, and yells NURSE!
Finally somebody wakes up down there and comes to see what is
going on. I get my pisspot emptied. They basically ignore the
bell outage and mumble something about how they will fix it in
the morning. This means I have to put up with smarmy Danny boy
again. Shit. I wonder what he'll covet this time and look for
the opportunity to nick.
Morning comes and no one checks the bell. I try it. It works.
I try not to waste time analyzing why it works sometimes and not
others. I may be a former electrical geek but I just don't have
the interest right now. Breakfast is here. We have hash again.
I can't wait to take the table knife and push it off the plate
onto the tray. Then I can cover it with the lid from the coffee
and cut down on the nastiness of having to look at it. It
reminds me of a ripe pile from a dog who ate too much raw meat.
I got two cups of coffee this morning and they were both a little
more than half full. Coffee futures must be up. Or down. Or
something.
I don't really want to get up today. The internet basically
sucks because even the weenies are off on vacation. I could
catch up on sleep because, now that everyone normal is up and
cranky about it, The Chink goes to fucking sleep! But nurseypoo
offers to get the block and tackle, and so if I don't have to do
anything except be the sow in the wheelbarrow, I'll go for it.
This sliding around makes my shoulder caps hurt. I wonder how
many years you have to do this before it doesn't hurt to do it.
Add to that I have a deep but moderate sunburn from Tuesday's
outing. I should have been more careful.
I was so glad they came at me with the correct Why Bother vitamin
pill that I actually took it instead of feeding it to the waste
basket. There is only one daytime med cart nurse I trust. I
suspect the others of attempting to slip me a tranq and/or
something nutritional. She asked me about my toe.
Background: Over four months ago the podiatrist who cuts
toenails at The ERR cut mine and gave me two ingrown nails, both
sides, on my big toe and the second one. Then he had to come
back and cut them some more to get them to grow out properly. He
bangs Cruel Cross $40 a trip for this and sees umpety-ump people
per trip and so makes several hundred smackeroos in an hour or
two at each tardfarm. What a racket.
I was thankful to have a numb foot (though this same numbness is
why diabetics get unnoticed footsores and very bad troubles). He
called for the toes to be cleaned, creamed with antibiotic crap,
and dressed. Kewl. This went on until I got to St Timmy's when
the last ERR dressing eventually fell off. My big toe was healed
up nicely but there was a small place on one side of the second
toe I was keeping an eye on.
Then some nurz here saw the toe and had a fit. They started
dressing and carrying on with it here. I expect they get to bill
MediCal for this. Fooling with it became less and less common
and depended largely upon who was on the dressings cart. The
last dressing was done two weeks ago and fell off a few days
after. The toe is okay, really. What I find amazing is that the
order has never been revised or cancelled, yet they aren't
following it.
So here I am looking at this lunch and wondering which parts of
it are actually fit to eat. There is a good-sized chunk of Roast
Something, most likely pork which I am sick of, a bread stick,
some black-eyed peas and mushrooms combination hork (I love that
word -- it's so versatile) and chopped-up green vegetable hork.
I elect to eat the breadstick and the pineapple wedges. Anybody
here want the rest? I thought not.
There is a knock on my door. It turns out to be the shrink who
lurked at The ERR. "They" sent him in to see me. I told you
"They" would get me. He wanted to talk with me about some
psychological issues. At least this time he comes on up front
about it. I figure Why not. I figure I need a good laugh. He
says Your blood sugar readings are way up. Yes, I agree, they
are. How do you account for that, he asks. (Notice the
accusatory tone.) I readily admit I'be been a bad boy because I
discovered the vending machines. You know, he says, you're on a
diabetic controlled diet. Yes, I agree. I want to say, So what
else is new.
I figure I will be wasting my breath telling him that, for
whatever reason there might be, my readings are 20 points higher
here on average than they were on the other kind of meter at The
ERR. He and I went round and round about this long ago. He
thinks control to the point of hypoglycemia is kewl. Unless it
is purely accidental, no matter How Good I am around here, I can
never get below 80. Over there I could get to 60. I choose not
to do that too often because I don't feel right when I do.
He looks at my lunch. Aren't you going to eat lunch. I did, I
said. What did you eat? I ate the bread stick and the pineapple
bits. I told him I'm tired of pork. I want rice, beans, and
corn meal and that I do very well on them in that I feel well-fed
and they don't run my BG up. He doesn't believe me. He doesn't
say this, but I can tell from his look.
He says (eyeing the brown stuff), What is this? -- it looks like
black-eyed peas and mushrooms. I say, your guess is as good as
mine; I don't eat stuff I can't recognize. He offers to leave
orders for me to have a low-fat diet. I hope he doesn't do that
because I _will_ reinstate my Mormon Closet of illicit groceries.
He criticizes the jar of stawberry jam which props up one side of
the monitor. I tell him the truth, that it makes the margarine
palatable. We continue this doe-see-doe of mating scorpions a
little while longer.
Then he starts in on my cutting back on my activity level.
"They" didn't omit a thing. I told him about the thefts and why
I don't leave this room often or on any kind of schedule. He
says he is sad to know that I am not progessing. I say, Why
progress -- and to where? It will be six to eighteen months
before I come up on the list for an apartment from the one agency
who will give me any estimate at all. In other words, doctor
dear, I am going to be living in a tardfarm for the foreseeable
future. Suicide is beginning to look more and more like an
option -- but I don't tell him that -- do you think I want to be
sent to the county funny farm?
We go into the fact that I have The Chink yelling on one side,
Franny down the hall screaming now and then, Buzzard across the
hall yelling when he's provoked, and Salazar down the hall
wailing twenty out of any twenty-four hours. I tell him I hate
this place. Yes, they offered me a room change -- to one smaller
than this and still for two people. They said my prospective
roommate was quiet. I've heard that about thirty times now in
the past year and twenty-eight times were lies.
I no longer believe what I am told when it is to someone else's
benefit for me to believe it. He at least knows why I am
dissatisfied. He will probably recommend that I have
HappyJuice[tm] so I will feel better. Fuck feel better. I want
answers to my predicament. If there are no answers, I want out
of the game. I'm tired of this shit. This is wearing me down to
a nub; it is causing me to use up all my substance; I am a drag
on my two faithful friends and I just hate it. If they had any
sense, they would say Adios, motherfucker. Unfortunately for
them, they have loyalty and principle and enjoy telling me to
quit whining, bitch. Alas, if I didn't whine, you wouldn't have
this entertainment.
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