By Big M

Geoffrey had settled into the Outpatient Clinics. The patients were relatively well, usually didn’t stink, and were capable of taking themselves to the toilet and wiping their own bottoms. It also meant that Geoffrey had every weekend off, so he’d been able to socialise. He’d been to a few parties, and had even been on a couple of dates with one of the clinic nurses, Morticia. She wasn’t a cracker like Melena Stuhl, but she was the only girl who’d ever said, ‘Yes’ to an invitation straight away, so that put her way ahead of everyone else.

Morticia fascinated Geoffrey. She wasn’t beautiful, she wasn’t even pretty, but she had strength of character and directness he’d never seen in a woman, or man. When asked by a patient if the clinic was where she intended to spend her career she answered. “No, I only did nursing so that I could get into my training as an embalmer.” Morticia had done a number of on-line courses in embalming, and funeral directing, but struggled to get a foothold. She told Geoffrey that embalming was the last bastion of male domination, and it was up to her to break down the barriers. Geoffrey didn’t know what a ‘bastion’ was, and was far too lazy to look it up on the internet, so logged it away in his mind with ‘male words’ like, ‘trouser’, ‘sweat’ and ‘mechanics’.

Morticia also had excellent taste. She had managed to wean Geoffrey off cask wine, and on to sophisticated drinks like ‘Scotch n Coke’, ‘Vodka n Lemonade’, and, for real aficionados, ‘Tia Maria n Milk’.

Geoffrey had suffered from a few minor incidents. For example, there was the usual tripping over the ‘Wet Floor’ sign, nearly every day. He’d broken the news to a man, that his fifteen-year-old daughter was pregnant, with the exclamation. “Congratulations, Grandad.” He was banned from the Sexually Transmitted Diseases Clinic as he had tried to treat a particular type of inflammation, in a particularly private area, with cortisone ointment, when, the treatment of choice was, of course, a big injection of penicillin.

Dr James had dropped by, a couple of times; just to see how Geoffrey was going. The visits had nothing to do with the fact that the Clinics were between the Executive Office, and Obstetrics. Dr James had even let on that he was in line for a special Quality Award, for his P.E.N.I.S. The only contender was the Area Resource Scheme for Emergencies. Even the acronym didn’t seem to roll off the tongue. He was already icing the Porphyry Pearl!

Sister Kent sat out the front of the hospital smoking with the patients from the Antenatal Ward. She always tried to explain that smoking was bad for the unborn child, It had certainly been bad for her child but, thank Christ, she thought, I don’t have to see the poor little bugger. Uva had ‘fallen in love’ with a young doctor during her training, but he’d wanted her to get rid of it because of ‘their careers.’ She couldn’t, and didn’t, but chose to have the child given up for adoption, so she could resume her training. That was another life.

Uva picked the stray bits of tobacco off her tongue while she sat and thought about the hospital. She had, of course, become aware of the Quality Awards, one for James’ penis, the other for the scheme of her arch nemesis, Sister Ophelia of the Immaculate Conception, at the Mother of Misery Hospital. Her scheme was a grander version of the PENIS. It was an area-wide-plan that involved patients being admitted via an Emergency Department then, if there were no beds, usually due to closures, they were transferred to another hospital, sometimes two hundred kilometres away. Like the PENIS it costs a hell of a lot more to run, but the costs were concealed from the balance sheet. She’d trained with Ophelia Brown Nose, and she hated her more than chokos!

Uva looked up to see Tess waddling towards her with a scowl on her face. Dr James was striding towards both of them, from the opposite direction. They met Uva at the same time. Tess’s face quickly assembled itself into an amiable smile, no longer contorted with effort of contracting the pelvic floor. “Gidday, James, I reckon congratulations are in order.” Exclaimed Uva.

“Ah…err…thankyou…err…Uva, I mean, Sister Kent.” Stammered James, wrinkling his nose at the smell of tobacco smoke. He’d always had a weak chest as a lad. His mum always said it complemented the rest of him. “I wanted to catch up with you, and…err…Tess…ah…Mrs Tickle. I’ve heard reports about male nurses from this very hospital going out drinking and carousing. Being a male nurse myself I thought I should issue an edict, I mean memo, that all male nurses are to act in a dignified manner when out and about.”

“Issue a memo?” Uva continued to pick tobacco from her tongue. “The buggers will just give you the finger, if you do that! Why don’t you leave it to me ‘n’ Tess? We’ll put the word out and see what happens?” James was quietly pleased to find an unlikely solution to this dilemma, so nodded and strode off, concentrating on his PENIS. As soon as he’d gone, Tess and Uva giggled. There was a Male Nurses Imbibers Club, MaNIC, which was, basically, an all male drinking group. Tess and Uva had managed to become associate members because they liked a drink, and, quote, “didn’t talk bullshit.” In short, they were the chief carousers!

Geoffrey was excited. Tonight might be the night. Mum had caught the Country Link train to Albury for the weekend, leaving him ‘in charge’, which meant he had to feed her cat, ‘Mr Tiddles’. He was going to cook for Morticia. It was going to be a feast. Chips n dip for starters, two McCann’s frozen roast dinners, followed by frozen apple pie and ice cream. He had a selection of premixed drinks to accompany the meal, Vodka Cruzers, Jim Bean n Coke, and a whole bottle of Tia Maria and Long Life Milk.  He had even gone to the extreme of having two showers today, and had sprinkled himself and his clothes with Hyena. He hoped that the previous fortnight of applying condoms to zucchinis was not going to be in vain.