Ticking off the pros, part two
This story is much funnier when my friend Deb tells it because she’s the nurse who was involved. Because she couldn’t really see everything I was doing, she likes to exaggerate her level of frustration.
The patient was a rather large and muscular guy who looked as if he’d been in a few fights in his life. I’m not sure what he was doing, but the staff were quite intimidated. When I got there, he was sitting in one of the common areas, slouched in his chair, with a look of exaggerated indifference on his face. Deb was sitting at the opposite end of the table and talking to him with a great sense of reason in her voice. (It’s hard to describe the tone in more detail. Sorry.) I sat down at the table, too, in view of him but not her, and I slouched in my chair and put an exaggerated indifference on my face.
When she said anything I thought he should agree with, I’d shift my expression to “Well, that makes sense”, and then shift it back to mirror his.
(Deb would say something like, “I called him so he could help me, and all he did was sit there!“)
And when I figured he and I were on the same wavelength, I yawned. A little noisily, but not loudly.
(Deb would nearly shout at this point in the story, “And then he started yawning! I’m trying to defuse a dangerous situation and he’s yawning!“)
I sat and listened and paced him for another minute and yawned again. And then he yawned too. I guess he got tired or something. No more fight in him. Shortly, he asked her if he could just go to bed.
As we walked out of the room, she gave me the “WTF did you do?!” look. I just shrugged.