"We've looked after it for you?"
"Yeah ... on the Staffordshire Potteries Care Pathway I see."
"Anyway. What do you want?" Her parents had wasted a lot of money on charm school.
"I've come to return the W1 keys but don't know where they belong overnight." A security issue you understand.
"Well that's a nurses' job. [Do me a favour.] Now I've got to get up, unlock the cupboard, unlock another key press and put them away. You should know better Raven ... leave it to a nurse next time."
"Rather than help someone who's busier than I am. I think I get the picture." It wouldn't have been so bad but I'd stayed late to finish discharging paying patients. Next time, I will leave it for a nurse although I'll get an ear-bashing for that too.
I made good my escape to the car park and spent the next ten minutes trying to find it in the dark. I was almost at the point of sending up a distress flare when I spied an old Naval chum, Destroyer, sitting in his Nissan Quashcow. I knew he'd been struggling with his new hip, fitted as an emergency at the local Infirmary but I was amazed to see him at Job2.1.
"Long story Raven." Muttering while gathering his mobile, iPad, Blackberry, laptop and portable breadmaker into his bag; knowing I wouldn't get a word in edgeways I let him ramble. "My femur's a size 5 apparently but the surgeon hammered a size 6 into the bone and broke it. Now I've got to recover from one operation before I can come here and have it done again."
"At least it'll be a different surgeon." I try to console my chums.
"Yeah ... and I won't have to submit another insurance claim for my bank cards."
"Sorry?"
"You bet I was flippin' sorry. I woke up from an 8 hour operation to find someone had disappeared with my wallet and cash. I went to buy the nurses some chocolate and all I'd got in my pocket was an Asda receipt."
"Did you try lost property?" I ventured.
"No wallet but they'd got a size 5 hip joint someone had left behind." I left him loading some glossy reading matter into the bag, and bade him farewell.
Bringing your own magazines into Job2.1 is better for your overall recovery. Also a Kindle to stimulate the brain. Access to the web to check out your post-operative chances and catch up on Facebook add to the overall feeling of wellbeing. But imagine our horror on finding a suspect "Countryside la Vie" magazine tucked under the mattress of a recent patellectomy patient - a knee job to you and me - which requires a whole seven to 14 days without bending said knee making blokes a bit 'Jake the Peg' if you get my drift. Anyway, some real thought had been put into this because we discovered a porn magazine sellotaped inside it's dull, upper class outer shell. On inspection of the porn, we found quality naughtiness of a refined nature aimed at the more mature gentleman. Oh dear me ... he must have spent several days of his recovery time high on Tramadol and as stiff as an orthopaedic crutch.
Tip of the Blog: At this point, I feel it should be pointed out that my characters are fictional and stories based loosely on fact as it happens. And should you see any similarity between Raven's doings and someone you know in real life, then you have a bigger creative imagination than mine and are now doubt a highly paid writer already.
Raven
