>What is scarier than being in the hospital? Being in the hospital on Halloween.
My ninety-year-old mother was in the hospital. The door to her room opened and a wheel chair entered, pushed by a radiology technician. He wore a rainbow streaked curly wig and clown makeup. “Hello, I’m your clown for the day” he said. Mother stared at him, with her mouth opened.
“I’m going to take you downstairs to get your ultrasound.”
“Where are you going to take me?”
“I’m going to take you to get a test done and if you want me to help you into the wheelchair, I will.”
This was a strange man, a clown man. She wanted no part of him, but she got into the wheelchair and was unhappy to learn that she would be traveling alone with him.
Mother needed a “real” breakfast, so while she was gone, I headed to the cafeteria. In the line behind me waiting to pay, was the best-dressed mummy I’d ever seen, and why not? The hospital was the perfect place for obtaining gauze for bandaging and experts to do the work. Each arm and leg was covered; the body wrapped and the head showed only blackened eyes, and there was no stiffness in the walk. Her movements were fluid, pulling out a Dr. Pepper from the cooler and then ordering a breakfast sandwich to go.
There was no mouth, so how would she eat without being unwrapped? Even more chilling, how would she go to the bathroom? Clearly, she did not consider the ramifications of being mummified, but she was in the right place for surgery.
There were other surprises in the hospital.
I recognized two versions of angels with elaborate wings and halos, a female football referee and one, 1950’s diner waitress in black, with pink polka-dot hair tie, matching hankie and ponytail.
Then, there was a nurse dressed as a nurse. She had on a short, white nurse’s dress and stockings, black stacked heels, white hat with a red cross on the front and three stethoscopes around her neck, red enclosed circle cheeks, and large black false eyelashes with matching red lips.
Mother had to endure the Halloween antics most of the day. Outside her door, a shrill voice accompanied screams and chilling laughter, which emanated from the nurses’ station. Prerecorded ghoulish sounds and Halloween phrases prompted the nurses to laugh.
These fun-loving individuals made me smile and surely brought some humor to others in the hospital. I wonder what they do for Thanksgiving.
Submitted by: Helen Aitken, Humor Writer and Author of “It Only Happens to Me…Can You Dial 9-1-1”