Monday, December 6, 2010

This Place Is Getting to Me

The hospital kitchen was short on staff today [We don't know what the problem was. We heard rumors that they contracted food poisoning from eating their own cooking at a pre-holiday party and also that many of them were hung over from drunken revelry at the same party] and they decided to make all the crazy people suffer because of it, probably because no one will believe us if we complain because we're all crazy. Anyway, they served us all yucky bologna sandwiches slathered with mayonnaise for lunch AND dinner. Some people ate the sandwiches for lunch. I didn't. Mayonnaise is one of the foods that I would not eat even if I were in the Donner Party, and bologna is just barely off my Donner Party list. I'm certainly not eating it unless my choices are limited to either imminent death, eating human flesh, or eating bologna. Once there's even a drop of mayo on it -- or even if someone cuts my sandwich with the same knife that was used to cut a sandwich with mayo -- it is a deal breaker as far as I'm concerned . . . and this sandwich was positively dripping with the stuff. By the time dinner rolled around and it was the same disgusting sandwiches as we had been served for lunch, positively no one was taking the hospital kitchen staff's sickening bait.

I don't even like to be in the same room with mayonnaise. If someone is eating mayo at home, I go elsewhere. My parents think it is incredibly rude to leave the table during a meal because I don't care for what someone else is eating, but then, it's considered just a bit rude to toss one's cookies at the table right in the middle of a meal, too, wouldn't you say?

In this hospital there is an eating disorder ward, with over half of its occupants reportedly being anorexic, and most of the remainder being bulimic. What would the rest be? What other eating disorders are there? I confess to being woefully ignorant on the topic, but my point remains the same as it would be if I were a freaking eating disorders savant: if someone in the hospital has to go hungry, why not the anorexics and the bulimics? The anorexics would think the gift of hunger was the greatest favor one could bestow upon them. The bulimics are just going to purge themselves afterward, anyway. Cut out the middle man and just keep the food away from them in the first place.

Most of us called our parents to complain, and our parents all told us to suck it up in different words. {I'm already scouting online for geriatric institutions of utter squalor in which to place my parents when they're old and senile. We'll see just how they like it when the shoe is on the other foot.] I then called several relatives to ask them to order a few pizzas for us, but no one with the means to accommodate my request was picking up.

This sounds like something out of a bad TV sitcom, but we actually snuck someone out of here to get food for us at a Burger King a couple of blocks away. We thought about concealing the boy in a laundry cart, but no one was picking up or delivering laundry, and there were, hence, no laundry carts. The only alternative was either to sneak him out when someone else came or wait until the nurse at the desk left her post unattended. Fortunately for us, soon after we decided on the escape plan, she went to the ladies' room without alerting another nurse. I quickly vaulted the counter and buzzed Jacob out. (Once a gymnast, always a gymnast.) Getting him back in with the food was no big deal, as the staff would be in way more trouble than Jacob or me or any of us if news of Jacob's escape were to leak.

We sent him with money and a list of what everyone wanted. I told him that my burger could have no mayo. Someone in the group said that Burger King never puts mayo on its regular hamburgers, but I was taking no chances. We couldn't get drinks because he would be unable to carry them, but we have a soda machine that's decently stocked in our wing. He came back about twenty-five minutes later with everything. I ate an entire hamburger AND an entire order of fries. I don't even LIKE fries, but extreme hunger will do that to a person. I could never be hungry enough to eat a bologna sandwich with mayo, though. Everyone has to draw the line at some point; I draw the line at bologna sandwiches with mayo.

9 comments:

  1. This comment has been removed by the author.

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  2. Yeah I agree about the bologna sandwiches with mayo...and I was pretty liberal about what I ate. There is something about bologna that just doesn't seem real. I mean, what is bologna exactly? Another thing that I would absolutely never eat is spam. Ever, ever!

    I hope you had a nice Birthday!!

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  3. Oh, and in regards to whom else may be lurking around with the anorexics and the bulimics... those who suffer Rumination Syndrome. From what I know, Rumination Syndrome is when a person ruminates, or in my blunt terms, digests their food like a cow. Carlo had a patient with this condition (thought she had a motility disorder at first) and he fed her one crumb every hour to re- train her stomach. I guess she's fine now. There is some debate over whether or not it’s an actual motility disorder or if it’s an actual eating disorder, although it tends to mostly fall in the later because it’s a developed habit.
    One of my creepy past doctors claimed that I had rumination syndrome. I, at the time, had no idea what it was or what it involved and when I researched it I was horrified. I had to go see a feeding specialist because of it, who declared me rumination free because he saw my abdominal x- rays. Feeding Specialist was the one who said I had pseudo obstruction syndrome 2 ½ years ago (but no one listened).

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  4. Rumination Syndrome? I never would have thought of it! I'll have to ask the psychological staff here if we have any patients with that particular disorder in our eating disorder wing. i wonder if my mom even knows about it. If ao, she's never mentioned it to me.

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  5. You know my sister has an eating disorder. I don't exactly appreciate you for making fun of her illness.
    You Know Who I AM

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  6. Oh, dear. That's the problem with institutional catering, it can go horribly wrong! And then it's sandwich time!!

    And Anonymous, my sister had an eating disorder. Perhaps you should take a chill pill? Or even better, try to avoid blogs which you think might upset you? Or is that part of the thrill?

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  7. Thanks, Matt. What eating diorder did your sister have? Anonymous' sister has bulimia. It's allegedly my fault because she always felt fat when compared to me. I certainly never told her she was fat; I don't know if one of her parents or siblings did, or if she surmised it totally on her own. I hate to be the one to inform her after she's already developed bulimia, but most anorexics look fat next to me. I look like a freaking eastern European orphan. Why in hell anyone would be envious of the look is an enigma to me.

    Anonymous is presently serving a full-time mission, so I'm mildly curious as to where the hell he's finding the time to read my blog. I may need to alert his mission president.

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  8. I'm relatively "live and let live" when it comes to what others eat, but I simply cannot watch anyone consume mayo. Bologna is only a single degree less disgusting.

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