The Laugh Track
Trust me (tee hee). I’m a (student) doctor.
Everything is funny.
The over (over) the top parents of that new admit? Snort. The creepy weird picture on the team room wall? Snicker. That ridiculous page from a highly particular nurse (who I love to death, but who could use a little time-out at strategic points of her shift)? Snickety-snack-snick. Even that innocent half-empty pizza box and the energy drink cans on the desk get a resounding GU-FFAW.
It’s 2:30 in the am and the world has gone from slightly to soggily humorous, the level of “tired” from minimally peaked to like dragging about in wet clothes, and frustrations are suddenly so laughable you just might lose bladder control.
In a rare moment of downtime we sit in one of the hospitalist team rooms, cracking ridiculous jokes. We seem so clever in our current state, but somewhere in the clear parts of our all-work-and-no-play-not-to-mention-sleep brains we know we’re nonsensical and borderline obnoxious to the outside observer.
The last straw snaps clean in two when a particularly snarky senior resident helps himself to our pizza pie and in a slow motion display of bumbling acrobatics dumps a big yellow goober of garlic butter smack dab in his crotchal region while backing into an empty chair and grinding a pizza slice and a hearty splash of Red-Bull into his fleece. His undershirt status-post fleece-ectomy has been dyed a fabulous shade of “why did I put my maroon socks in the whites” pink, the axillary sweat pits providing a unique contrast.
“I’m all out of good clean clothes,” he sputters around a wide grin.
Everyone loses it.
There are tears, snorts, and red faces all around, a healthy display of respiratory distress and croupy, barky coughs.
Until all three interns receive nearly simultaneous admission pages. We retreat to our respective team rooms, serious as can be, but cannot staunch the occasional giggle wink at those quiet, opportune times on passing in the hall.
Oh, only one more night float shift and this giddy, sleepy madness will end.
At least it’s been good for the ol’ cardiovascular system… Vasodilation relaxation couldn’t hurt a bunch of tight-wad medical trainees one bit.
2 Comments on “The Laugh Track”
Keep it clean, keep it respectful, or keep away.
Because I Can’t Snap
House Rules
Nothing under the table.
I love times like these… When you laugh so hard that you can’t breathe and you’re delirious the whole time. It makes the exhaustion worth it in a weird redeeming sort of way.
I completely agree. Massive release of laugh endorphins – always, ALWAYS worth it.