Charles Barkley was Wrong

This week I was reminded why I love my job. I had the opportunity to travel to Oakland for a site visit to another hospital. After listening to the Chuckster on TNT during the playoffs I was expecting to descend into the 7th circle of hell. I thought it was rather nice. Although I must concede that I actually stayed in Walnut Creek (isn’t that the town from Little House in the Prairie?) which is not really Oakland. Nonetheless it was a nice, albeit short trip.

The flight from Salt Lake to Oakland wasn’t too bad, even though I had the middle seat. The young lady next to me nearly drove me insane with her fidgeting. Lean forward, peer out the window, lean back, try to cross legs. Lean forward, rummage through bag, lean back, try to take a nap. Shift left, shift right, do the hokey pokey and turn yourself about. The man next to me who had the aisle seat I coveted was so large that, according to the flight attendant in the unlikely event of a water splashdown he could be used as a floatation device.

The flight back was even more entertaining. We took off just as some thunderstorms were rolling in, so we had a really rough start. It wasn’t too bad, and reminded me of the Indiana Jones ride at Disneyland. The woman behind me became the first person I have ever witnessed actually using one of ‘those little bags’. The best thing about the flights was that I was able to finish 1984. For my comments on that book look for them on http://admittingsbookclub.blogspot.com/.

The trip would have been uneventful had it not been for the fact that the vendor who invited us lost one of our party. We spent the morning Tuesday on a site visit in another hospital. After the visit we piled into the Escalades that they picked us up in and headed for a nice restaurant. We were continually changing vehicles from stop to stop just to mix it up, and no one noticed that Sandy, our house supervisor had been left at the hospital. At least she hadn’t been left there when we left to go to the airport.

The hospital we visited was much like ours. The bed count was similar, they also had multiple buildings with inpatient units and, most importantly, like us their official company bird was the one-legged yellow crane.

At dinner Monday night I had the following exchange:

Vendor: Glasses up! I would like to propose a toast. (Pause) Hey, you can’t toast with
a glass of water! Get some wine.

Nursing Director: He doesn’t drink. Don’t you know you’re in the middle of a bunch of
Utah ‘Mo’s?

Vendor: Mos?

Director: Mormons. We’re all a bunch of Mormons, but Chris is the only good one who
doesn’t drink.

Me: Except I’m not the only one who taught Sunday School yesterday….

Despite being singled out as the only Latter Day Saint in the group, I was somewhat vindicated when I got back to the hotel and opened the drawer expecting to find a Holy Bible when what to my wondering eyes should appear?

No Bible, just a trusty Book of Mormon.

And strangely enough I was the only one who was up on time and didn’t have a splitting headache during the site visit on Tuesday morning….