Time For some comedy

To cheer myself up I have decided to post another fictional snippet. There are three characters in it who I need to introduce to you, though their parts in this little comedy are bit. Renee Lyman is the wife of St. Sanctimonia Hospital CEO Will Lyman, who you met in "A Meeting of the Board". Miranda Olsen is an Intensive Care nurse new to the Hospital. Timmy Profitt is CEO of Criterion Medical Corporation, a hospital company founded by his father W.E. Profitt


We Tube - by E.Sprague



Miranda's patient wanted to watch the ten o'clock news.

"How do I work this?". He handed Miranda the TV remote. Nine hours after bypass surgery, he was still shaky. But he knew what he wanted. " Could you put it on Channel 9?".

"Next- On Fox News Live at Ten", announced Calliope Acidophilus, the news reader, "A Southbelt neighborhood is up in arms tonight about a local man's plans to build a 50 foot tower of empty dog food cans in his front yard. A Belltown woman finds a squirrel in her dryer, and scenes from a local hospital end up on the Internet, and some people are not happy about it'.

"I wonder what hospital they're talking about," said the patient. Five minutes later he put on his call light. " I just saw you on TV," he said to Miranda.

Randy Snaggs and his friend Jimmy Burkle called the video they put on We-Tube "My Gran is a patient at the world famous St. Sanctimonia Hospital". They filmed Miranda through the window of Mrs. Snaggs' room.

"She's hot!", the boys agreed. Randy had hidden the camcorder in his backpack.

"Put it back," said Mrs. Snaggs, who saw Miranda coming toward the room.

Wasn't that just like Gran! The boys loved her. Who else would drive them ten miles out of a dry county to buy beer at a mini-mart? Who else would sit with them in their driveway, giggling and drinking?

The hot nurse left. Randy pulled a bottle of beer out of his back pack. He filmed Gran pretending to open it with her teeth.

Mrs Snagg's room was next to the fire door and the back stairwell. After the boys took some good shots of the bedside commode that the day nurse had forgotten to flush, they decided to explore.

The dust on the first landing was so thick that the boys scooped it into balls and threw it at each other. On the second landing they found a live cockroach and a dead wasp. They filmed a mock battle between the quick and the deceased. There was no excitement on the third and last landing. Until they found a bottle of vodka in a paper bag tucked under the stairs. The boys pretended to drink it.

The door outside was next. They opened it and surprised two rats eating chicken tenders someone had dropped on the sidewalk. Commentary from Jimmy- "World class St. Sanctimonia Hospital employees hard at work". The rats ran.

The security guard outside the Family Waiting Room entrance never saw the boys. He was smoking and facing the other way. The boys walked up the service road. At the loading dock, behind a dumpster, they saw two Enviornmental Services employees sharing a joint. "Got it," said Jimmy.

Their last coup was a long tracking shot right up to the doors of the Emergency Room. "Life and Death in the big city hospital," said Randy. A pizza car sped up, and the driver jumped out to deliver four pizzas to a waiting nurse. Behind him came another car which dropped off two bags of Chinese from the Jade Dragon Garden.

One of Timmy Profitt's sons saw the video on the news, and called his father.

Timmy Profitt called Will Lyman. " I can see you're making a big difference over there". Timmy was laughing.

"We Tube," Will said to Renee, "This must be it. 'My Gran is a Patient at the World Famous St. Sanctimonia Hospital' ".

"What are you going to do?", Renee asked after they watched the video. Why was Will so incapable of getting control of his hospital?

Will Lyman knew what he needed to do.

"Let's go up to the farm for the week of Thanksgiving ," he said.


( The preceding is a work of fiction, and part of a novel in progress- the Author.)