Loss of Wisdom

Thin black mat on a marble floor in a drab green room with dirt on the ceiling fan and no toilet paper in the restroom – was my sleeping arrangements last Friday night. If you ever find yourself in that situation, you can probably figure that you are sleeping in an Indian hospital room as well. A good friend of mine was going to have her wisdom teeth removed. Not sure why, but they wanted her to be admitted to the hospital the night before surgery – something about having “blood investigations.” (that’s blood tests for you Americans) 

So, there we were, the three of us chilling in hospital room; which is my favorite place to be Friday nights. It was a private room; well it was private in the fact that there was only one patient in the room, but I think it was anything but private. After we settled into our room at about 7pm, our door became a revolving one. Nurses, doctors, cleaners, food service, more nurses, another doctor continued to come in and do whatever it was they needed to do. Of course it was normal for them to check on a patient, so why need to knock on the door first? After our last ‘guest’ left at about 1045pm, we locked our door. Not the doorknob mind you, cause it had broken off after the 3^rd visitor or so. So, we had to lock the sliding lock. Good thing too, or our first visitor the next morning would have barged in without knocking first. And I’m not usually ready for company at 530am; can’t I at least have a minute or so to wipe the sleep out of my eyes?

One of the oddest visitors was the next day. A guy marched into our room, without knocking, and walked past us without saying a word to the bathroom. We looked at each other and one of us got up to see what he was doing. No worries, he was just cleaning the bathroom for the day. Yep, he put a small, pink ball of something in the sink drain. Maybe to clean the drains when the water dissolved whatever it was? Anyway, it was clean now, so he signed his name on the sheet for that day. Uh, maybe I could send you to an American janitorial school?

Good news is, the surgery went well and we didn’t have to stay another night. My friend is just about as good as new, minus 4 teeth and some wisdom. And we all got the awesome experience of staying in an Indian hospital room.