Good Help Is Hard to Find

If I have my choice of weapons, sir, I choose grammar ~ from "Lady for a Day" released in 1933 and which later became "Pocketful of Miracles" with Bette Davis and Glenn Ford.

Once an English major, always an English major, I think to myself as I leave for lunch and pass by the nurse from down the hall.  She's sprawled out on a piece of furniture with a movie magazine and the remains of a Happy Meal in her lap, a cell phone wedged between her shoulder and ample chins.  I can hear her gum smacking from ten feet away.  Mah baby, he five, she says into the phone as I walk past, He know what be goin' on.  Nothing as fine as a public education, I think to myself, at least if you're writing a low rent rap song, but otherwise it's an affront to the ears.  I remind myself that I shouldn't judge a book by its cover but it's impossible to get past the multicolored hair, bulging scrubs, false eyelashes and pointed, painted nails.  And the speech.  Especially the speech.  She may be a perfectly nice young woman, a devoted mother, an absolutely adequate nurse - but these are things I'll never know - it's foolish and unfair, but I'm too offended by her mangled grammar to want to find out and her appearance does nothing to inspire my confidence or curiosity.

Later in the day another young woman comes to the window.  She pulls a sheet of paper from her backpack - it's ragged and grimy around the edges - and when she pushes it toward me I notice her dirty nails and tattooed wrists.

You be takin' applications? she asks roughly and unsmiling.

No, I tell her shortly and gingerly push the piece of paper back toward her with a pencil, We're not.

She snatches it back, crams it into a back pocket and storms out with a sneer that I strongly suspect is permanent and more than a hint of sullen defiance in her waddle.  I watch as she jams earphones from a portable dvd player into her ears, slings her backpack over one hefty shoulder and then from the safety of the corridor, gives me a bitter glare and makes a finger gesture.  I have a sudden and compelling urge to disinfect the counter and spray the waiting room with air freshener but I settle for locking the outer door, as if it would actually keep the trash out.