Dan Vs. Comatose Woman.

    Pudding rules.

    I just got home from my latest infusion of chemical goodies at the hospital, and though the whole process is painfully, glacially slow, I passed the time downing Snack Packs while watching a TV over which I had no control. 

    The person in control of the TV had long since passed out, and she snored loudly and drooled on the remote that sat wedged into her neck with the pillow.  They were loading her up with a fat bag of saline solution; however, judging from her comatose state, you'd think they were giving her a steady, slow-pour of morphine. 

    Occasionally, this woman would twitch or shuffle her sleeping self around in search of a more comfortable position in an uncomfortable chair, and as a result, every time she moved, the channel would change. 

    We started on The Price is Right where I watched some girl from Boston named Brittney win a new car playing the game Lucky Seven.  Yay Brittney!  And, as I worked my way through yet another tiny cup of chocolate pudding, I desperately began to hope that I would see the mountain-climber game.  I delight in the mountain-climber game.  There is nothing more fun than watching that yodelling little piece of Euro-trash tumble to his death at hands of some "lucky " contestant who doesn't know the price of a tube of Pepsodent. 

    I waited for the mountain-climber game when my neighbor twitched, and we wound up on the local Spanish speaking network. 

    There were two women yelling at each other in a blaze of latin, and I could feel my adrenalin kicking in as I watched.  I kept waiting for a word or phrase I understood.  Perhaps if one of them could break from the argument and ask where the bathroom was, I could catch my breath and know what was going on.  As it stood, I needed this channel changed before my head exploded. 

    So, as the two women chattered wildly, I began to scheme, and I took a quick inventory of the nearby ersatz alarm clocks I had.  I had four Snack Packs left, but there was noway I was going to part with any of those by chucking one at my sleeping neighbor.  On the table to my right was an unused medication pump, but tossing that would probably land me in jail since it's powered by a very heavy lead battery.  And, on my left was a handful of hypodermic needles left by the nurse. 

    Now, before I could begin practicing my dart game, the woman across from me twitched and we wound up watching Judging Amy.  It was the usual placid episode, and aside from the occasional outburst by Tyne Daly, it was not entirely unlike watching the color beige.  It was definitely a welcome relief from the frenetic, Spanish screaming match I'd just witnessed. 

    Anyway, this went on for quite some time as my little pump clicked and hummed.  And, as time went on, and the channels changed, I found myself trying new things to wake my neighbor.  Sometimes I would cough loudly, and though my neighbor wouldn't wake, the nurse would come running in and ask if I'd like more pudding.  Sometimes I'd just stare at the woman.  After all, if you stare at a sleeping person, they tend to wake up all sorts of freaked out, and this woman sure looked like she could use the jolt. 

     In the end, nothing worked, and when my little bag of medicine was emptied, and I had run through the last of my Snack Packs, the nurse came in, ripped the needle out of my arm and the tape holding it down (eeeeyeeouch!), and I got up and left thinking that this woman just spent the last four hours with me without ever even knowing I was there.  For some odd reason, it reminded me of my grandparent's marriage. 

-DP