All In a Day's Work or We're Going Crazy-Wanna Come Along?

I work at a small hospital, small but nice. Or it used to be until it got flooded by the hurricane. They're working on that. Almost done with the reconstruction. I didn't lose my job like the folks down at UTMB Galveston. Luckily. We're back in our own unit after spending 3 months sharing space in the maternity ward. Gadzooks! That was awful! We'v had a very busy month-been full every day and playing the revolving door game with patients. We've also had some very strange things happen and also some ridiculous thing happen. It struck me a few days ago that working where I do, things have the potential to be ridiculous or life-threatening and the day goes so much easier when it's somewhere between the two.
So, I decided to make little notes about the stupid stuff that happens at work, like my own version of the Reader's Digest column. If you're not in healthcare you may not get some of the humor but I'll try to explain if it. Keep in mind I can't give real names, either. Some of it happens between co-workers (and I've got a main source for that!) but some of it comes from patients or their families.
The first entry belongs to my husband, however, simply because it was too funny. Chuckles is the general manager for a Subway restaurant. Behind it, is a nursing home. Sometimes, he tells me, they let the more lucid and trustworthy residents out for walks and they come to the store for lunch. Today, he had one such a customer but the poor dear was obviously more confused than any of the others that had been there. It kinda threw him for a loop.
He overheard another employee speaking to a customer and realized the employee was confused about what the lady wanted. He poked his head out and saw a little old lady at the counter. She wanted to buy tuna but without the bread. No big deal. He got that straightened out with the employee on how that works and was asked what should she put it in? A soup bowl, he says. "Oh no, dear," the customer says. "Don't ruin your dishes. Just put it right here." And she holds out her hands. "Put it right here, dear. Do you have a lid I can put on this?"
Keep in mind they're not used to senile people and the employee wasn't quite sure what to make of that request. Well, the lady gets her tuna in a bowl, cuz it's no trouble to give her a bowl,and she pays.
"How much?"
"Fifty cents, ma'am."
"How much for 2 scoops?"
"Well, that would be a dollar."
"A dollar? Why, that's twice as much!"
What's he supposed to say to that? "Yes."
So she pays and sits down in the dining room and proceeds to eat the tuna from the bowl. With her fingers. Gets it everywhere. Chuckles goes out to ask an embarrassed mother if her 3 giggling kids could stop laughing at the poor lady who has tuna dripping down her chin. In clumps. She's probably embarrassed about it. Poor thing probably doesn't even realize she's doing it. Even the construction workers on their lunch break are trying not to laugh at her. So the lady finishes up and starts to leave. With the tuna still all over her face. Chuck asks her if she's got someone to take her home. "Oh, they're in the car, dear." (I want to know why they didn't come in with her.)
He said it was the weirdest thing he's ever had to do (and remember we've got 3 kids ourselves) but the woman just didn't understand that she had made a mess of herself. I guess he tried giving her a napkin or maybe tried telling her to wipe her face off but she didn't get it. So he wiped her face of for her and sent her on her way.
The whole rest of the day, the running joke was to request some food item and hold out the hands for it. "Just put it right here."
My grandfather had Alzheimer's. He used to wander down the street buck naked. We get nursing home patients quite a lot in my unit-usually cuz they've fallen & broken a hip. Sometimes, they're pleasantly confused like the Subway lady but sometimes they climb over bedrails, pull out IV lines and catheters and cuss and scream and hit. Those are the days when you can hear those guys with the straight jackets calling your name.
You either laugh a little at the inanity of it all or you go crazy right along with them. If I ever go senile like that, somebody shoot me.