Wednesday, April 10, 2013

A Line from the Sickroom


Rather under the weather, darlings - a most annoying lung problem that involves having to huff and puff at a clinical-looking and diabolically loud machine, not to mention any number of other indignities, chief among them a cough that combines the least attractive aspects of a wretching cat and a volcano mysteriously spewing phlegm in place of lava.  Oh.  Oh, dear.  Sorry for that.  Must be the meds.

But don't you think a Society Nurse could be awfully useful at times?  She would be devoted to returning to health an ailing reputation, making sure one appeared in amusing snippets in all the right columns and perhaps arranging for an especially chic stay at Gstaad, Cannes, or Baden Baden.  Think of all the people you know who could use one, private duty and 'round the clock...

7 comments:

  1. "You can spray her wherever you figure the streptococci lurk,
    You can give her a shot for whatever's she's got, but it just won't work,
    If she's tired of getting the fish eye from the hotel clerk,
    A person can develop a cold.

    It says here:
    The female remaining single
    Just in the legal sense
    Shows a neurotic tendency (see note).
    Chronic organic symptoms
    Toxic or hypertense
    Involving the eye, the ear, the nose, and throat."

    Jx

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  2. Good god! Huff and puff? A machine? But yes, all dowagers require society nurses. No mere members of the masses should be allowed to attend to one's...personal matters. Really.

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  3. balky pulmones,
    maybe all that recent sand?

    be better soon.

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  4. My mother was a nurse for the Halle family n Cleveland. You know, Halle's Department Store. The store that Haley Barry was named for. Old man Halle was in failing health and he needed round the clock nursing. So she worked in the mansion off South Park. I asked her once what she remembered most about being in that big house. She said "Kay Halle had filthy toe nails." Years later Cleveland Magazine ran a story about "Kay Halle and her beautiful people" profiling the aging heiress. And all I could wonder was if she still had toe jam.

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    Replies
    1. Wow! Halle's was a big deal in my hometown, which once upon a time sported not one but three "nice people's" department stores. The original was the Boston Store, the old reliable; then came Halle's, which was a little flashier but still very respectable, and then Trask's, which was a shade downmarket but still set apart from the likes of Sear's and the five-and-dime.

      The last time I visited the poor place, the Sears was (just barely) hanging on, but that aside there seemed only to be an atrocity called something like Valu-City, which appeared to sell things discovered in Walmart dumpsters.

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  5. Oh dear. I hope you're quickly on the mend so all huffing, puffing and assorted blowing can be done in a purely recreational manner.

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  6. Ugh, sorry to hear you have to interface with a machine. (That is what I am calling using it because it makes me think I am clever and I giggle at my own stupid half-joke.) Multiple sclerosis has caused my diaphragm to be partially paralyzed, so I just started using a portable ventilator intermittently to help me breathe. It is a big, honking, hideous machine and it is unbelievably uncomfortable. I don't want to seem churlish, because I am grateful there is something that can help me, but it really blows. tee hee

    Hope you're better soon. :)

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