Roommate Troubles

So as I’m wheeled into the room I find three people waiting for me. There’s Sib4, who’s been here all day; SiL2, who’s stopped by on her way home from work; and my assistant from work who’s stopped by to drop off some flowers and give his cell number to my family in case he can be of any help to them. When he learned I was on my way up, he decided to wait and see how I was.

My assistant is the first one I notice. So having spent the last four days unable to connect to anything at work more complicated than email, and flying on a mix of high-powered painkillers and residual anesthesia, I start doing what any self-respecting workaholic would do. I start giving instructions:

Me: Can you call IT and have them break into my email and turn on the Out of Office?

Assistant: It’s been done.

Me: Ok. Call payroll and have them change the system settings so the staff settings will role to my proxy.

Assistant: That’s been done, too.

Me: Invoices, then. Call AP and make sure those get routed…

Assistant: Also done.

Eventually, I give up -- the fact that Sib4 is finding the interaction increasingly amusing makes it hard to continue – and the conversation turns to important things like the current crop of shows available on Netflix and how best to circumvent the access restrictions on same. Then my roommate weighs in:

Who the hell are you people? Get out!

Granted, as I noted previously, my roommate has spent at least the last four days (and presumably much longer) in various states of excruciating pain. I’m now very familiar excruciating. But come on now, really? Is this really necessary?

My assistant heads out to have a talk with the nurses. Twenty minutes later, I’m in a private room.