Friday the 13th

My 'day' started out with a fresh-out-of-the-oven 400-degree pizza flopping onto the kitchen floor. Topping side down, naturally. I completely agree with my brother's glowing assessment of Lodge's 14-inch cast iron pizza pan (Chris's Blog).
The pan was not the problem. No, the problem was taking it out of the oven to cool, and the slippery situation between the cooling rack and the granite-topped kitchen island. Flimsy, sliding wire rack + highly polished granite + heavy pizza = ....well, you do the math. I have an image burned in my brain of a half-round of nicely browned crust disappearing over the edge of the island, and a wet-sounding 'fwup!!'. Hey, on the plus side, no one got burned. And thank God, neither of the cats was there. They like to hang out in that particular spot when we are in the kitchen sometimes. And I had broiled the top a little to brown the cheese, so things had solidified a bit. The mess could have been a hell of a lot bigger.

I only said the Queen Mother of All Swear Words once. And Tim wasn't even there to hear it. He did come into the kitchen for dinner just in time to see the pizza still on the floor and me disgustedly preparing to deal with it. All he said was 'Oh.' I picked up the fallen pizza with a cookie sheet, flipped it right side up on the island, we inspected it for foreign objects (hey, good thing I had just swept the floor that morning!) and we sliced it and dug in.

Well, all right. Then there was work. There really ought to be lemon laws for laboratory instruments. Alas, there are none we can invoke. Too bad, because these things cost a hell of a lot more than cars. No, instead we get software updates on them that only reveal MORE error flags and situations where we cannot report the result we get (were the numbers we were reporting out before the updates valid??). Let's try running the test again. Same error flag? (yes, in all likelihood, although you may get lucky) Well, now we have taken twice the time and reagent to run the test. Next thing to do is send the specimen down one floor to the small satellite lab near the ER, where an instrument several series numbers OLDER than the ones in the main lab will give a reportable result. By now we have taken three times as long as it should, and three times the almightily expensive reagent to run one test. Meanwhile the phone is ringing off the hook because of nurses calling to ask why they don't have coagulation test results on their patients who are on heparin therapy. Don't even think about attempting to explain that studies are being done by day shift to investigate the problem and that the manufacturer is looking into it. This, people, is quality customer service.

Nearly 18 years as a Med Tech, and I am still plagued by the woeful inability to produce answers to problems, solutions to riddles, hand-holding services, critically needed Blook Bank products hours before I'm even aware there is an issue/need. When, I ask you, will I get over these failings? It's a wonder I'm still employed.

I got into not one, but two circular conversations with the same nurse over tests that were never ordered. Why couldn't she find test results on a patient from 10pm on May 12th? Why weren't they in the computer? A true conundrum. Until I consulted the computer, and told her there was nothing ordered on that particular patient for that time. For whatever reason, and I'm sure it was a very sound reason in her mind, my answer did not please her. She was sure these tests had been ordered. Where were the results? She'd gone to the patient and asked her if she'd been drawn at 10pm. Oh yes, the patient said someone from 'lab' drew her. Naner-naner.

To make a long story short, I eventually realized the purpose of her phone calls were to Blame The Lab. Once you realize that, everything becomes easy. You don't get quite as irritated when, after you explain how tricky it's going to be to produce results for tests never ordered, you get told, 'well that's for you to find out!'. And you can quite readily agree with her hope that this patient's morning labs are going to get done on time. Oh, yes indeedy. While meanwhile you wonder which patient the clerk really ordered those labs on, and which of the tubes from the previous 4 hours of lab work is mislabeled.

I should have graciously offered to order the tests, come up with some educated bogus numbers to enter as results, and then printed her a nice fresh chart copy. At the lowest point of my despair, I can easily imagine this nurse not only letting me go right ahead and do such an idiotic, unethical thing, but being happy about her problem being swiftly taken care of by a Lab Girl.

Not only could I not get all the phantom work done, the rest of the night was spent up to my eyeballs in real work. The sensation of trying to run under water usually starts fading away on my drive home. This morning it was not home I headed for directly, it was the grocery store. I had 5 things on my list. I spent an hour in the store. Hmm. 5 items...an entire hour. Why so long? Well, I had to wallow in painful indecision over some greeting cards that weren't on my list, but will be needed soon. Too flowery. Too girly. No, that one might be taken the wrong way. Oooh, what if he reads that message as the literal truth? Oh, a minefield of misconstruances, not to mention butt-ugly and just plain wrong Hallmark offerings. Yeesh.

Then I had to stare at all the Star Wars Episode III stuff, and wonder at the mix of excitement and disturbed worry I felt. Since Qui-Gon Jinn is not going to put in an appearance, I have already lost most of my previous delirious joy in Uncle George's offerings. And maybe it's a generational thing, but these new ones somehow aren't the same as the ones in the 80's. I could barely drive home from the theater, I was still floating on a sci-fi cloud of joy after seeing any one of them for the 6th or 7th time. And as I stared at the Berry Lava Explosion-flavored Pop Tarts and the Cheezits and fruit snacks and pop and everything else with Darth Vader's mug on it, I wondered what does this all mean? Does this stuff brighten someone's day? Are kids as geeked as we were 20 years ago? Are the sales of these products up? Will this mean anything 100 years from now? What if the movie sucks?

I think too much. And that's not a reflection on my intelligence.

BTW, if anyone on the east side of the Big Pond has a desire for any of these items or anything else SW-related I can lay my hands on here in the States, please let me know.

Now that this big cluster of thunderstorms is rolling in, I had better switch off the computer. In any case, I need to go to bed anyway. It's late. Because I wasted a half hour by getting most of this blog done, and then deleting it with an errant twitch of my little finger which hit the 'clear' key. A key it has NEVER hit before today...!

Happy Friday the 13th!