Candy Striping

All this hand washing (if I got any Emily germs over the weekend, I don't want to burden my system with even MORE germs) and flu scare reminds of the brief time I candy striped at the hospital with Rebecca Rice during my Sophomore or Junior year in High School.

Do you know what a candy striper is? Neither do I, really. It might be someone that goes around the hospital in a barber striped apron asking what they can to do to help the 3 nurses at the nursing station or taking a candy/magazine/book cart around to the 2 old people asleep in the hospital rooms. At least that is what I did. We're talking the Los Alamos New Mexico hospital. I only saw one baby in the nursery the entire time I was there, the lone nurse rocking her/him/it in the dark room.

I don't know exactly why I thought it was a good idea. I don't like hospitals or any kind of place where doctors congregate. And when I say doctors, I mean doctors of medicine (not u, brother Jared)... any type of medicine. I'm not picky. Probably the only reason I need an inhaler is that I start to hyperventilate when anyone says "doctors" followed by the word "appointment". (I once went by myself to an appointment... signed in... sat down... got back up... crossed out my name and left. Mother was not impressed.)

Perhaps I was trying to get over my fears of anything medical?

All I can tell u is that for one of our Laural projects, Rebecca and I spent at least 20 hours after school candy striping at the local (only) hospital, i.e. wandering the empty halls talking.

A fellow schoolmate named Bobbyie instructed us in the candy striper ways the first time we went. She was a small, thin, cute cheerleader. With a name like Bobbyie on such a small girl person, I think being a cheerleader was a requirement.

She took us around introducing us to the nurses, the cart, and the little song you were supposed to sing as you washed your hands.

"Twinkle Twinkle little star,
how I wonder what you are...."

Yea right. Us cool Juniors singing that little ditty with someone watching? I don't think so.

She also told us that if there wasn't anything to do, she'd head down to the cafeteria to wait until someone called her over the loudspeaker. Hmm... lets just say that if there was nothing to do, we were outta there.

The one time I actually remember doing anything, was trying to help an old man eat his dinner. He ended up grabbing the little condiment bag of salad dressing and sucking it down. Being the selfish teenager that I was, I laughed. I then continued to watch Rebecca finish feeding him and then got out of there as quickly as I could.

We then washed our hands, singing;

"Twinkle Twinkle Little star,
How I wonder what you are..."