Don't ask questions you don't want to hear the answers to!

"Questions are never indiscreet: answers sometimes are"
-Oscar Wilde


Inevitably it happens; I'm at a social function and what I do for a living comes up in the conversation.

Immediately the attention of all within earshot shifts to me because for whatever reason many people seem to view emergency nurses with a special type of fascination that is usually reserved for reptiles at the zoo (look but don't touch).

Personally when this has happened I do my best to be polite and change the conversation to other topics, but sometimes despite my best effort there is just one person who wants to hear all about it and sooner or later gets around to asking me what is the most disgusting thing I have ever seen is? Again everyone in earshot seems to focus on me.

Frankly answering that question is like shooting fish in a barrel, it's just too easy. I can tell hundreds of stories that would turn the stomach of a billy goat in a second let alone the average person. So I'm sure in what is the time honored tradition of old, bald, fat, bitter and twisted emergency nurses I have provided answers that trust me appropriately and sometimes dramatically more than satiate the average person's desire for exposure to the macabre by proxy. I suppose I could say nothing but I have to admit that at times enjoy that horrified look they get on their faces as I give them exactly what they asked for.

In days gone by I usually opted for a straight forward blood and guts story with an anecdote or two about how hard it is to mop up that much blood off the floor or the best ways to get blood stains of a ceiling. But truthfully as time has marched on on I have become more experienced and circumspect in my story telling and these days I usually try going for the subtle versus the obvious to achieve the desired effect.

For example:

Person at party: So what's the worst thing you've ever seen as an ER Nurse?

Angry Nurse: Someone offered me the use of their crack pipe….

Person at Party (confused): What's so gross about that?

Angry Nurse (Patiently): He had just reached down and pulled it out of the crack of his ass while I was watching!



Not quite as graphic as blood on the ceiling I admit, but it ends the conversation just as fast!