Karmic Junk-Kick

That karma is a true motherfucker. So the other day the nominations are announced for Charlotte’s annual Theatre Awards, and God’s Country, the show I directed and designed back in October, got several nominations. My leading guys both got nominated for best Actor, Uncle Phil got nominated for best supporting actor, Jeff got nominated for best technical effect for his projections, Tony got nominated for best cameo for his work as the creepy little Aryan Child of the Corn, and I got nominated for directing and design. I don’t expect to win any of my awards, but it was nice that a group of my peers thought that my work was worthy of some notice. I hope that some of my guys can pick up awards, though, because they busted their ever-loving balls on that show. I also got a couple of nominations for my design work on Crazyface, a comedy that I designed right after God’s Country. It would be nice to pick up another little Lucite statue for my office, and I think the work I did on Crazyface was actually better than my design for God’s Country, so we’ll see.

So in the midst of being pleased at that, and feeling like I was actually being productive at work for a change (although the flipside of productivity is when you finish half of your week’s To-Do list on Tuesday and need to figure out how you’re going to justify your existence for the rest of the week), my sister calls.

You guys kinda know where this is going, right? Phone calls from my family almost never go well. So five minutes later I’m on the interstate headed down to SC (and NOT for reasons as cool as my reasons for going to SC this weekend) to meet my mom at the Emergency Room. She had been trying to kill a snake with a hoe in the backyard (these are things that you don’t even really question in Bullock Creek, it’s kinda just a fact of life), tripped on the sidewalk and broke her wrist. So we’re waiting, because that’s what you do at emergency rooms, you wait. And I again notice the height of health-care irony, iron-clad proof that the folks that run the hospital in Rock Hill are, in the words of the great philosopher One Hung Lo, unadulterated douchebags. On the wall of the exam rooms is a sign that tells you that you’ll get a customer satisfaction survey in a few days in the mail. Now they go on to tell you that they only count surveys where all the answers are that they met or exceeded your standards of satisfaction in every way, so if they aren’t please tell them right away.

Lemme get this straight, I’m going to get a survey to tell you if you rock or you suck. If I say you rock, my survey gets counted and my opinion matters, but if I say you suck, then my survey gets round-filed and you DO ABSOLUTELY FUCKING NOTHING TO IMPROVE THE (ON THE VERY BEST OF FUCKING DAYS) MEDIOCRE LEVEL OF SERVICE YOU PROVIDE?!?!?!?!?

Seems a little skull-fucked to me. So does the fact that the douchebag PA that sees my mom won’t call in the on-call orthopedist to look at the X-rays, but rather only splints her arm and sends her home so that she can follow up with her orthopedist on her own. I appreciate the fact that ER docs are busy, and work hard, and have to deal with a lot of shit. But this is Rock Motherfucking Hill, SC, not Chicago, Manhattan, or the car-theft capital of the world, St. Louis (sorry, Chilly, that sucks). It’s not like there’s a bunch of triage going on. And exactly what is the fucking point of being “on call” if nobody calls your ass? It was too late for golf and too early for dinner, so it’s not like the fucker had a whole lot critical going on. He wasn’t in surgery, because we were AT THE ONLY HOSPITAL IN THE COUNTY.

I was less than thrilled and may or may not have performed an act that we in the rural South refer to as “showing my ass.” I’m pretty sure that Dr. Douchebag knew that I was not exactly amazed with the quality of service going on. And by the way, when a woman cares enough to bring her own fucking bucket to the emergency room, you know she’s got issues. Get her out of sight as fast as you can, don’t just leave her in the waiting room while my whole family troops in and out. She was kinda creepy and I wanted to make sure there was no splatter going on.

And then I find out when I get home that another good friend of mine has breast cancer. That’s kind of a big “goddammit” around the Hartness household, since Suzy’s aunt and mom both died from the disease. Hopefully our friend can beat this goddamn thing. We can stick a bomb down a chimney…but that thinking verges on the pointless. Just do what you can do for the folks you can do for. There’s a bunch of folks that have fundraisers going on, go find them and give them cash.

Interesting thought from the road home – car haulers: a whole lotta handles, not much margin for error. Discuss.