Vengeance is Pretty Darn Funny

"Hey Rei-rei, can you cover me in ED2?"

"Sure man...Lunch?"

"Yeah. There's nothing going on. Everyone's getting admitted. Doc may want some stuff done on bed 19."

"Got it."

I then checked the patients on the tracker and I did the scut stuff (stocking, checking monitors, getting labs, updating EKGs, etc.) afterwards. After a few minutes of nothingness in a quite unusually chill night in the ER, I was asked to do a couple things on bed 19.

"Hello Mr. Dunce, I'm going to do an EKG on you real quick." The guy was pretty chill and agreed without asking questions. As I was hooking him to the leads, he said " You're too young to be a nurse"

"Oh, I'm not a nurse, sir. I'm just a tech here".

"You must be Filipino"

"Yes sir."

Then this very caucasian gentleman started busting out his lingo skills on me:

"Talaga? Saan ka sa Pilipinas? (really? what part of the Philippines were you from?)

Holy cow. The freaking white man can speak an Asian language. I was quite impressed since he uttered a complete sentence without the slightest trace of an american accent. He sounded just like any other pinoy. So we had a conversation in my own language while I was taking his heart tracing. The conversation turned out being impressive at first to annoying. It reminded me of the upper-class social atmosphere in the Philippines that I have learned to hate.
Parts of the conversation went like this and it was all in tagalog. I'm just typing it in english to save me precious time and battery life since I got a sucky spot at this sucky starbucks at a sucky city close to my sucky workplace. It sucks.

"Yeah, so I went to Princeton for my undergrad and Harvard for my graduate studies. I speak a lot of languages"

"Oh how cool sir. That's really great (do you want me to instantly defibrillate you? I just want to electrocute you in a medical fashion)". "So why tagalog? How did you end up learning my language?"

"Oh I go there every two months. I live in Alabang (a high-end area that I've been meaning to burn a long time ago) and I own an Enzo....you know what an Enzo is?"

"No sir.(I don't give a crap sir. Can I go show the Doctor your EKG? I want him to see a fatal rhythm here by mistake)."

"It's a ferrari. I have one in the Philippines, and I have one here. I left it at work though because the paramedics had to take me here via ambulance"

"Oh. I'm sure it's gonna be okay at your workplace (wait til I get out of work in the morning and I will practice my demolishing skills on it)."

"Yeah. Oh, do you know Henry Sy (a business tycoon in asia)? He's my personal friend. He's got lots of malls here in Texas and he owns a bunch of malls in the Philippines, including The Mall of Asia (yes, that's the largest mall in asia, and it's in Manila)".

"Oh yes, I've heard of him (SIR, I FUCKING GREW UP IN THE PHILIPPINES AND I KNOW HIM.)"

"My family owns a lot of McDonald's here and in Manila and Makati too"

"Oh cool ( I own a nuclear ammunitions factory that will be ready to destroy all your Mickey D's)."

"Yeah, and-"

"Sir I gotta go"

"OK".

I went outside his cubicle, with my eyes rolling, and went to show Dr. Oxman his EKG. Upon showing the EKG, I realized I forgot something to do that's on my list.

"Have you done a fecal WBC test already?"

"Not yet, Doc. But I'll do it right now."

"Send it to lab right away."

"Yes, doctor."

Bingo. The perfect revenge. I forgot I had to do a fecal WBC test on him. What is this test? This is where I prepare a couple of microscope slides and get the patient prepped up in a side-lying position, his underwear off. Then I put on my clean gloves and stick about 2-3 inches of an 8-inch rectal probe. Yes, it's the Q-tip from hell.

"Mr. Dunce, may nakalimutan po ako (I forgot to do somehting, sir)."

The rest was history.