Friday, October 22, 2010
When I got to Bingo tonight, the doors were closed, and people were milling around the hallways. Oh, no, I thought; you have GOT to be kidding me. There had better be Bingo tonight.
"We can’t go in," Dorothy said.
"Are they just mopping?" I asked hopefully. I had missed a few sessions while my parents were here, and then a couple sessions were cancelled. I honestly was eager to reconnect with my Bingo buddies. And I was already here!
"No," Dorothy said. "It’s a medical situation."
Nothing like a real crisis to knock the selfish whiner out of you.
"Oh, no," I said. I craned my neck and peered in. Sure enough, someone was on the floor, and firefighters were working on him.
I figured I was doing no good loitering, so I went down to say hi to Mike, and a nurse came in. Mike asked what was going on in the Bingo room. She said someone was having a medical problem, and lots of residents were hanging around in the hall, complaining that Bingo was late.
I went back toward the Bingo room to check on things. I asked Wesley whether he knew the ill resident.
"It’s an older guy with white hair," he told me.
"Oh, that narrows it down," I said. "At least you didn’t say, ‘It’s the guy in the wheelchair.’"
Wesley laughed so hard, he stopped making sound. Suddenly my comment struck me as inappropriate, but, I justified to myself, at least I wasn’t complaining about late Bingo.
But a lot of people were. Loudly. As they grumbled, the medics wheeled out the ill resident on a gurney. We still couldn’t ID him.
Right before Bingo started, a man I assume is a staff member asked for everyone’s attention. He announced that he was disgusted with everyone’s behavior, and that he hopes all those complainers are never lying on the floor while other people whine about late Bingo. He had a point, and I felt bad. I couldn’t tell whether anyone else did, too, but no one said another word about it. As I learned the night Bill Crowell needed medical attention during Bingo: The game goes on.
For such a shaky start, it turned into a rather entertaining evening:
When I got to Bingo tonight, the doors were closed, and people were milling around the hallways. Oh, no, I thought; you have GOT to be kidding me. There had better be Bingo tonight.
"We can’t go in," Dorothy said.
"Are they just mopping?" I asked hopefully. I had missed a few sessions while my parents were here, and then a couple sessions were cancelled. I honestly was eager to reconnect with my Bingo buddies. And I was already here!
"No," Dorothy said. "It’s a medical situation."
Nothing like a real crisis to knock the selfish whiner out of you.
"Oh, no," I said. I craned my neck and peered in. Sure enough, someone was on the floor, and firefighters were working on him.
I figured I was doing no good loitering, so I went down to say hi to Mike, and a nurse came in. Mike asked what was going on in the Bingo room. She said someone was having a medical problem, and lots of residents were hanging around in the hall, complaining that Bingo was late.
I went back toward the Bingo room to check on things. I asked Wesley whether he knew the ill resident.
"It’s an older guy with white hair," he told me.
"Oh, that narrows it down," I said. "At least you didn’t say, ‘It’s the guy in the wheelchair.’"
Wesley laughed so hard, he stopped making sound. Suddenly my comment struck me as inappropriate, but, I justified to myself, at least I wasn’t complaining about late Bingo.
But a lot of people were. Loudly. As they grumbled, the medics wheeled out the ill resident on a gurney. We still couldn’t ID him.
Right before Bingo started, a man I assume is a staff member asked for everyone’s attention. He announced that he was disgusted with everyone’s behavior, and that he hopes all those complainers are never lying on the floor while other people whine about late Bingo. He had a point, and I felt bad. I couldn’t tell whether anyone else did, too, but no one said another word about it. As I learned the night Bill Crowell needed medical attention during Bingo: The game goes on.
For such a shaky start, it turned into a rather entertaining evening:
- While we were in the hall earlier, Ray McDade handed me a folder. He said it was some of the writing he’d done over the past 25 years or so, and he wanted me to have it because I was "near and dear to his heart." It was a touching moment, but as I flipped through the papers, I realized I was going to have to break the spell. "Is this new writing?" I asked. "Because I think you gave me all this about six months ago." (He had.) I told Ray I loved his writing, and I was honored to read it. Still am. But he put the papers away.
In the Bingo room, Ray sits with his buddy (and mine) Bill Crowell. They have become quite the endearing pair. When I walked over to stash my purse at their table, Bill said (loudly enough for Ray to hear), "You are near and dear to my heart, too, but I don’t have any printed material to give you." I found it endearing, anyway—not sure about Ray. - It is Danny’s birthday today, and for his first Bingo win he picked a darling little bag filled with bath goodies. The bag is so darling that as I was stocking the prize cart, I thought (but not out loud): "Now that is a darling little bag." Halfway through Bingo, Dorothy came over to me, holding out the bag. "It’s Danny’s birthday, and he wants you to have this," she said. I thanked Danny profusely. "I am supposed to give YOU presents on your birthday," I told him.
- Back at Ray and Bill’s table o’ comedy, I noticed a bandaid on the back of Ray’s head. "Is that thing still there?" he asked. He reached up and yanked it off (along with several strands of lovely white hair), revealing a little scab underneath. "I put that bandage on for church so the people behind me wouldn’t have to look at the scab," he said. To which Bill said: "It’s better than having to look at your butt." I seriously love these guys.
- Dorothy was an active woman tonight. At one point I was halfway across the room and she yelled, "Sandy!" It sounded urgent, so I ran over, and everyone else looked up to witness the crisis. Lord knows we did NOT need another medical emergency. "You have something on your butt," she said, kind of loudly. "Like a string hanging down." She volunteered to pull it off, but she couldn’t find it, even though she lifted my shirt way past my public-exposure comfort zone. Everyone was still staring. "Carry on," I said. "Just a little problem with my butt."
- Toward the end of Bingo, Dorothy asked me whether I remembered the first day we met. (I didn’t, so I’m glad she kept talking.) She said we had been in the volunteer office, and Dorothy had directed me to the appropriate bathroom for non-employees. "So I’m one of the first ones you met," she said. "You sure are," I said. "Thank you for helping me."
Then Dorothy told me it was nice to have me back at Bingo. I told her it was nice to be back. And it is. It really, really is.