Baby in the well

Baby in the Well

My grandparents were in a new state looking for a new house to stay while they worked.  They were to meet their new landlords on a piece of property.  This property had a well and after an afternoon of running around my mom and her brothers were thirsty.

They went to the well and started to pull the bucket up.  As they pulled on the rope they started to hear a baby crying.  They were the only ones on the property and no babies were around.  The more they pulled on the rope the louder the crying became.

They finally looked in the well and saw a baby, crying and screaming.  It began reaching out to grab them.  They screamed let go of the rope, dropping the baby back into the well, water splashing everywhere.

The landlord finally arrived to find a bunch of wet, scared kids.  They told the story of what happened.  He explained several years ago a new mother was trying to get water out of the well and the baby slipped out of her hands and drowned in the well.

Little Witch at School

My mom was bullied in school on a regular basis.  One day she was tormented on the playground to the point where she started sobbing and ran away to the bathroom.  The bathroom, according to her, was never used because everyone claimed it was haunted.  She was so upset she didn't care that she ran into the haunted bathroom, she just wanted to get away from everybody.  While she sat sobbing on the toilet she heard a cackle and saw a miniature witch flying around her.

House in the Woods

Most people grew up getting bedtime stories.  These bedtime stories are usually fun, heartwarming stories to help the child feel good before bed.  I didn't get those growing up.  If I got a story they were usually scary stories (maybe that's why I enjoy watching horror movies).  Over the next several posts I'm going to do my best to tell those stories so they don't get lost in time.

First I need to explain some things about my mother's background.  She is the second oldest of eight kids.  Her parents were migrant workers by trade and would travel where the work was.  Sometimes their "houses" were a little run down, in many instances barely livable.

Add this to the fact that us Mexicans are very superstitious, my mother had a lot of very creepy stories for us growing up.  She claims these are true stories and that they happened to her over the course of her childhood in various locations throughout the US, mostly in the south and midwest.

House in the Woods

As migrant workers my grandparents were sometimes given free places to stay to help offset some of the expenses.  One particular house they stayed at was a one bedroom shack in the middle of the woods. This shack, from the descriptions given to me, was essentially boards held together with some form of roofing.  There was no insulation, just a frame and a roof protecting them.  There were many holes in the walls and you could easily peer outside from the room.  The eight children stayed in the room while the adults stayed in the other room.

One particular night my grandparents had some guests over so they sent my mom and her siblings to the room a little early.  The children entertained themselves talking, joking and having a grand old time.  During all the fun and commotion my mom felt someone was watching them.  She looked around the room to find an eye peering through one of the holes in the wall.  She screamed, everyone turned and saw an eye looking at them.

At this point all the children began screaming in terror.  Their dad, my grandpa, became extremely pissed off at them.  He came storming into the room and started yelling at them.  When they explained what they saw my grandpa grabbed a gun and ran outside the house to look for the peeping tom.  The guests there also helped him search.  

After looking around the house and surrounding woods, they found nothing.  No footprints leading towards the house or away from the house.  The only thing they found were two hoof prints in the moist ground where the children had seen the eye.

To this day my mom firmly believes the devil was watching them that night.

Want a diddly-deal with me?

Venting session

Tonight was a slow night in the ER considering it's a Sunday night.  Usually we are busting at the seams with wait times up to 1.5 hours to get a room and 2 hours to be seen.  There were several occasions where There was nobody in the waiting room.  All night we had empty rooms, which is good.  I was able to enjoy watching a few football games which made for nice.

My shift is from 11am to 11pm.  The person in charge closes 4 rooms by 11pm because lack of nursing staff to keep them open.  Depending on the doctor and patient flow they start closing these rooms between 9 and 9:30.

My assignment tonight was the section that gets closed off early.  I discharged my last patient at 9:30.  We have 15 open beds in the ER, 11 if you claim my four rooms closed.  With my shift ending, I assumed I would be sent home because you can't justify the staffing (we had 2 float nurses after 7pm).  The coworkers next to me had a total of 3 patients to 2 nurses.

I wait around for 15 minutes for the "you can go home" from the charge nurse.  I finally decide to walk around to see if anybody needed help (nobody did, we had 2 other nurses helping out).

After another few minutes I'm told I will be getting an ambulance.  I know I look dumbfounded.  As I said above, my section should have been closed by this point, even with a fast doctor.  Because I am who I am instead of asking why not send that ambulance to one of the other nurses and send me home, I say OK and go wait for them.

By the time the ambulance arrives I had zero patients for more than half an hour.  Every nurse in the ER had only 2 patients to care for.  I do my job, take care of the patient, and less than 10 minutes later we are just waiting on CT results.  I'm done documenting on this patient by 1015, 45 minutes until the end of my shift.

Still waiting to get sent home.  Nothing.  I go kill time elsewhere.  By 1030pm I'm completely pissed off.  There are no ambulances out, no patients in the lobby, and every nurse has 2 patients to care for (except me, remember, I have one patient and 3 closed rooms at this time).

I decide to make myself scarce so the charge nurse doesn't find me.  Why bother going home?  My shift is over in less than 30 minutes and I'm not allowed to refuse being sent home early (that I know of).

By the time 11pm rolls around I'm beyond frustrated.  I could have gone home early and spent some time with my wife before she fell asleep, even if it was just watching TV.  That's better than not seeing her until she gets home from work tomorrow (we work opposite schedules, I sometimes go for several days without seeing her).

I give report on my patient to the nurse relieving me and I make my way to the break room.  I am very passive aggressive.  I would rather avoid confrontation and not make a scene.  The only thing I can do to be spiteful is get paid to sit.

We work 12 hour shifts.  If you take a 30 minute lunch break you need to stay until 30 minutes after your shift is over in order to get a paid lunch break.  For me I have to clock out at 11:30 to get that paid lunch.  Most of the time I would rather clock out and head home.  I'm too awake and pissed off to want to go home.

My passive aggressive self sat for 30 minutes in our break room so I could get a paid lunch break.  All in the name of spite.  No it didn't make me feel any better but at least I got paid to play on my phone for 30 minutes.

Speaking of taking a break, the overnight crew works from 7p-7a.  Typical in our line of work.  They regularly have potluck dinners because that's what they do.  They have recently started waiting to bring out their potluck food until after 11pm, when all the day shift people are gone.  No big deal, I'm leaving anyway.

During my spiteful sitting tonight one of the night shifters comes into the break room and notices all the food in the crockpot is gone.  This is just barely after 11pm.  She commented "See, this is why we don't bring the food out until after day shift is gone, they eat all the food."

Talk about rubbing me the wrong way after already being in a pissy mood.  I was the only "day" shift staff in the ER at this point.  The others left at 7pm and the one who came in at 11am with me went home sick.  The night shift had eaten all the food.  I hadn't been in the break room for more than 5 minutes when this was said and most of the food was already gone before I even came in.

All I wanted to say was "Fuck you, your overnight people ate all the food."  But what good would that do?  I decided to keep my mouth shut and stare at the phone.  Only 15 minutes until I could leave with my passive aggressive boycott for not getting sent home early.

I survived the night without saying too much.  It took a lot out of me.

Oh the things I would say

I try to be a happy guy. I like to think I'm approachable, and I definitely try to be friendly to everyone.  Around people I know I can be very chatty and slaphappy.

I also like to think of myself as a very patient person.  Definitely no saint but a fuse long enough that it usually fizzles out before anything happens.

Because my fuse is fairly long I can usually tell when I'm starting to get upset and I do what I can to remove myself from the situation.

Usually I walk away, if that's not possible I'll try to make a joke of the situation (usually at work, especially when it's a patient that has pushed me over the edge).

Unlike the Incredible Hulk it doesn't have a lot to do with "You wouldn't like me when I'm angry" but more I don't like how I feel.  Yes I care about your feelings to an extent but deeper than that, I care about how I will react.

Just like many other people when I become angry everything I've been thinking about that person boils to the surface.  It becomes extremely difficult to control when it does start to come out.  Everything I've wanted to say to the person that has by this point pissed me off is on the tip of my tongue.  When I get to this point I can feel my heart racing and I'm ready to go off.


I don't like this.  I don't like losing control of myself.  I would hate to say something in anger, true or not, because once it's out you can't take it back.

If I get to this point I get quiet.  I stop talking because, once again, I don't want to say anything that I will regret.  After getting quiet I remove myself from the situation and away from the person that has pushed me over the edge.

Most of the time I'm successful, occasionally I'm not.

Sometimes I wish I didn't care so much.  Sometimes I wish I could just say everything that I feel needs to be said.  I do care though and if I'm going to say what's on my mind it will be a civil conversation.

Today's society seemingly encourages you to not care about other people's feelings and to an extent they are right.  If you piss someone off for being who you are or saying what you think who cares, right?  No skin off your back if they are offended.

Though I agree that this manner of thinking helps you be yourself (Fitz and the Tantrums The Walker, great song), I feel that overall it's making us insensitive.

I guess what I'm trying to say is I do care what others think about me.  In my mind when I lose my anger/temper in front of them and go off I lose their respect.  I would rather be respected.

In the case where family pushed me to my breaking point, I like to think I forgive quickly.  If I attack them verbally because they made me angry, forgiveness can become much more difficult.  I would rather not put them in that situation. I would rather remain amicable with my family (immediate, extended, and married into) so family gatherings don't get awkward on account of me.

The epitome of family gathering awkwardness

The Wall

So we all know Trump is planning on building a wall between the US and Mexico border.  I even joked about it in a previous post (see joking with the parents).

I was watching Arrested Development the other night.  Definitely one of the best shows they took off the air, scoring a solid 89% on Metacritic and an 83% on Rotten Tomatoes.  And of course this is in my opinion, if you like comedy you need to watch this show.  As I tell all people about this show, they build up the jokes in the beginning so the end is hilarious.  They also build up jokes throughout the series that lend a hand to some of the hilarity in later seasons.  You can't jump in the middle of a show and miss half of what they built up because then you won't know what they're joking about.

Anyway, back to a theory I have.  Slight spoilers, nothing serious if you want to continue reading.  In Season 4, Episode 2 George Bluth Sr. steals plans from a competitor (they are property developers) for what he thinks is a monument dedicated to George W. Bush.  It's revealed later that his wife Lucille originally had the idea and it actually a wall, not a monument, that is to be built on the border between California and Mexico to prevent illegals from entering the US.

So, where did Trump come up with his idea?  Maybe someone on his team saw the show (they do have lives outside their campaign, I think) and shot the idea to The Donald?  Who knows, but now you'll be wondering the same thing (especially if the wall is built).