Halloween Prelude

Our medical/ surgical head nurse was Sara, she was consistently late for the beginning of her shift. She was an out and out germ-a-phobe. Every morning she would clean off the counter space of the desk with alcohol. Everything got cleaned, even the telephone. If she was forced to answer the telephone before she had given it its daily cleaning, she would gingerly lift the receiver with her fingertips only and hold it away from her ear just close enough that she could hear the conversation.

 Sara always walked to work, no matter what the weather. She only lived about two blocks from the hospital. One cold winter morning, she looked through the window to see what the weather was like before she showered, put on her makeup, and got dressed. She hadn’t seen any snow and decided to wear her nurse’s shoes.

As she was leaving her home, she found that the ground was now covered in about one inch of light, fluffy, powdery snow. It had fallen while she was getting ready for work. As usual, she was running late and didn’t want to take the time to go back inside and change into her boots. Grabbing the broom from her front porch she started to sweep her way to work. Each sweep cleared a space for several steps. The wispy snow would dance out of her way with each swipe of the broom.

She was almost halfway to work, when a strange man in a car stopped, rolled down his window, and called out, “Hey lady! You’d make better time if you hop on that broom and ride it.” Laughing, he rolled up his window and drove away hidden in a cloud of water vapor coming from his tailpipe.

Sara arrived on our unit in such a snit; she forgot to wipe her telephone and desk area with alcohol until much later.