Next Time, Just Slap Me

So I go from my day job over to my night job and I lay my goodies on the desk - impulse buys from Trader Joe's featuring Jamaican ginger beer, a big chunk of blue cheese, some dried meats, green olive tapenade, bagel chips and milk chocolate. I am somewhat annoyed when a fax comes through and tells me there is a woman waiting for me to evaluate her in one of the Emergency Departments; it seems she is depressed. When I get there,  I ask her what brought her to the emergency room tonight, and she's a year younger than I am though I would have guessed ten years older when I looked at her. She lays the reasons out for me dead pan - can't sleep, two jobs, recent divorce from an abusive husband, three kids at home that won't help, the town is about to put a lien on her house because she can't pay the property tax, foreclosure is imminent, her kids are acting out, a restraining order makes it impossible to talk to her Ex to figure out how to sell a house nobody wants in a down market, and today the electric company people came to her house and bullied her but couldn't get the $500 she owes out of her. When they left, she collapsed and cried for four and a half hours, something she's never done in her life, but it didn't help, so she came to the hospital because she didn't know what else to do.


The next time you see me moping around, don't say anything, just slap me.