Jest in Fun

June was the manager of our medical/ surgical floors. She always complained of being cold and ran the heaters in her office and full blast in the connecting bathroom, even in the hot days of summer.

One winter day, the glistening icicles beckoned to me as they hung in long, thick jagged points from the hospital’s eaves. Several of them were five and a half feet long. I had gotten report from the night shift supervisor and June wasn’t in yet.

Going into her office, I shut off the heat in her bathroom and went outside. Breaking off one of the longest icicles I could reach, I carried it inside and placed it in her commode. It was nearly four feet in length and about ten inches thick at its base. I tried to get the icicle to stand straight up out of the bowl, but it wouldn’t stay. Putting the thickest part down in the water, I leaned the rest of it against the bathroom wall and closed the door.

When she went into the bathroom and saw what I’d done, she laughed. She hunted me down to remove it. She said, "I had to use the restroom. When I saw that icicle in my commode, I almost peed myself. How about removing it so that I can use my own bathroom?

Another story involved  June’s bathroom and a Resusci-Annie mannequin. June kept the CPR dummy in her office for several weeks. She began to pose it in her chair with its feet up on the desk, sometimes with a cigarette in her fingers or she would pose it at her conference table holding a pen. The dummy had more of a social life than I did.

June told me, “I scared myself this morning. I forgot that Annie was in my office and when I unlocked my door, I actually thought that someone was sitting there.”

One morning I moved the mannequin and hung it on the coat hook at the inside of her bathroom door and forgot about it.

June cornered me the next day and complained, “When I opened the restroom door, Annie’s feet and arms flew out and then banged back against the door. I thought someone was in my bathroom and had committed suicide. I almost had a heart attack.” She poked her pointed finger on my shoulder.

She must not have been too scared. She left poor Annie hanging there for several weeks. Actually, I think it was a convenient place to store Annie without using a chair in her office.