Sterile Processing Technician (Trainee)

70 Years old, by far the oldest person sitting in a room of 27, waiting for a chance to apply for a job sterilizing medical/surgical equipment (entry level) at a currently unknown salary, working who knows how many hours a week, at a yet-to-be-determined location.

There are another 12-15 souls in the foyer who are also waiting ahead of me for an interview.  In the past 5 minutes only two names have been called for whatever is the next step in the process, and 6 more applicants have arrived, so it looks like it could be a bit of a wait at this point (unless a miracle happens, which, of course, I am always open to.)

As tempus fugits  (what’s the Latin word for “crawls at a snail’s pace”) I have ample time to consider the finer points of my job search here today, to whit:  Do I really want to invest this much time seeking a job I heard of for the first time just a week ago and about which I know precious little?  Knowing what I do know about this job, do I really want to risk getting cut, pricked, or otherwise exposed to some, possibly, deadly disease that someone else clearly sought treatment to rid him/herself of?  How do I convince my interviewer that, of the 50 or so (so far) other eager applicants, I am the one — I, the guy with the gray goatee (albeit the most handsome guy in the room) am the one he/she should risk his/her career to hire?  What if this job is really shitty?  Given all the above, how much time am I willing to spend waiting here before I blow this joint and get on with my day?  (On a related note, do I have anything better/more important to do if I do leave?)

(Another 15 minutes of my life have passed/expired since the last name was called.  Getting on with my day is looking more and more like an attractive option.)

More questions arise as I continue my vigil:  What are the odds that I can beat out the (now) 60 other candidates for this position?  Even though this process is a font of valuable insights, do I yet have sufficient material for a decent blog (this being the end of my second page of handwritten blather)?

Decision made for me: I was supposed to fill out an on-line application before coming for an interview — I can’t be interviewed without it.  (Who knew?)

It was probably  a shitty job anyway.

 

How Did You Sleep, Dear

My wife, Mo, will not ask this question again.

 

I don’t know why her simple, ordinary question struck me the way it did that particular morning.  It was asked in the way that we usually greet each other upon our awakening — before we shake out the cobwebs that snare and entrap more intelligent conversation, preventing it from greetin the new day.  Maybe I’d had a dream, another of those that disappear without a trace upon awakening; maybe I’d had a wonderful, restful sleep and, miraculously felt alive and adventurous at the moment.  Whatever the reason, I proceeded to fully, to the best of my ability, answer her question, given my age, physical condition and temperament.

 

“Well,” I began, “as usual before we fall asleep, I turned to you (on my right side, as you occupy the left side of the bed), and we spooned awhile”.  (We both fell asleep ,you before me).  “Before long, I awakened to a right arm that had fallen asleep and was causing the usual  pain, so I rotated counterclockwise onto my back, which is, as you know, my go-to sleep position.  There I slept soundly for however long only you can tell me, because, in this position I usually begin my snoring, which  awakens you, and which, you say, can sometimes literally rattle the windows.”  (She will not take the trouble to record this alleged racket for me to hear, so I cannot, and will not, confirm this to be true.)

Returning to her early-morning question I continue,”Being awakened by snoring, mine or yours I do not know, I continued my counter-clockwise rotation onto my left side.”  Now, due to my deviated septum, before long I have difficulty breathing.  As, I am sure you know, the body has developed an astounding ability to keep itself from suffocating: when lying on one’s left side the right, uppermost, nostril opens; when lying on the right side, the left, uppermost, nostril opens up.   (I have read that periodically, even when standing erect and proceeding with our day-to-day activities, our nostrils open and close, one then the other, continually.  If both nostrils were to be open simultaneously, my reading continued, we would die.  I have been aware of such nostril oscillations  since reading that and have scrupulously made every effort to prevent both my nostrils from being open at once, even if it meant putting a ball of toilet paper up one side.)  In any event, I have, over the years, developed a method to open up my right nostril, the one which should be open, when lying on my left side:  I place my right thumb on the right side of my nose and apply a slight downward pressure, my fingers comfortably splayed over my forehead.  My right nostril immediately opens and remains open until I remove my thumb pressure, which usually happens after I fall asleep, typically within an hour or two.

“Then,” I told my darling wife, “I returned to my original position on my right side, once again spooning with you.”  (I had, at that time rotated a full 180 degrees, instead of my previous 90 degrees counter-clockwise, bypassing the lying on my stomach, which would be the next logical progression of the rotational cycle.  I generally reserve the face-down position for those times when I am having difficulty falling asleep — it is truly amazing how effective this position is.  Unfortunately, after about 45 minutes, my arms, which are, by necessity, folded under me, fall asleep and awaken me.  This is, fortuitously, an great advantage when I want to take a 45 minute nap.

“After a number of these cycles I awoke, however coherently, to your query.”

“And, how did you sleep, Darling?”

 

 

 

 

Life is What You Make of It

Where, when and how did my life take such a drastic turn? I remember that at an early age all I ever wanted was to be liked, so I was an exceptionally well-behaved child. Later I discovered that if I made people laugh they’d like me even more. The die was cast. My career as a ersatz entertainer was launched. I had them eating out of the palm of my hand and began to believe all the nice things people said about me, and all the cute comments the cute girls wrote in my high school yearbook (“Stay as sweet as you are”, “To the funniest guy I know”, “Don’t ever change”).
Things began to change. I grew up in a small, quiet town in southeast Texas in the late 50’s, early 60’s. It was the end of the school year, the last days, when, typically no book learning ever took place. But something big took place: my civics teacher, Mr. Rector brought in an l.p. he was very excited about and wanted to share it with us, so we listened to music. He played Bob Dylan (“Freewheelin'” if I remember correctly). I was hooked. I was amazed. I was slammed to the ground and stomped on by this man, by his strange music, and by his unholy lyrics. Imagine! The man who had been charged with teaching us how our government works is punctuating his lessons by planting the seeds of protest in us! In all honesty, it took me decades to see the irony here, but the seeds had been planted; the damage done. Thank you, Mr. Rector, wherever you are.
After graduating high school, followed by a semester at the local Institute of Technology (a B.A. major — accounting was my goal), I, instead joined the Navy, intending to make that my career, as my father had done. So, off to San Diego for boot camp and “A” School, where I learned my specialty: Interior Communications Electrician (running wire for telephones, bells and whistles and such). Then, the North Bay Area, Vallejo, CA for nuclear power school, where I met my first wife, who began The Awakening: this was, after all, the San Francisco Bay Area in the middle 60’s. It was a far cry from the sleepy town of “Boremont”, TX. Six months in the high deserts of Idaho followed. That’s where the Navy’s reactor training facility was located — in the desert, where there’d be few civilian casualties in case one of us fucked up. Then I was sent to serve on the greatest warship mankind had ever known, the ship I had read about in Popular Science as a kid, the ship I was about to step foot on after a short chopper ride from the ship that ferried me there in the South China Sea — the USS Enterprise CVAN(65). My job now was to operate the nuclear reactors that powered this mighty ship on its mission to launch heavily armed jet fighters/bombers, whose sole function was to bomb the shit out of the Viet Cong (and any non-combatants who might happen to be nearby — collateral damage, they were called).
My life veered giddily to the left. The Big E (as she was called) returned to her home port in Alameda, CA, across the Bay from San Francisco, when our tour to Vietnam ended. It was the Summer of Love. LSD, pot, more Bob Dylan. The seeds planted in Mr. Rector’s civics class were sprouting like crazy. I protested the war even while in uniform. I protested being in the Navy, where I was prevented from letting my hair grow to my shoulders. So I got a smart lawyer and an un-hip psychiatrist and was honorably discharged a year and a half before the end of our contract. Now I could really let go. Sex, drugs and rock ‘n roll as far as the eye could see. There were no limits.
I learned to read Tarot cards; became a member of an “interdimentional studies” group; became a father; got a divorce; lived in a three-storey wood and glass pyramid overlooking the Pacific about 75 miles north of San Francisco (just north of Jenner by the Sea). I meditated; learned Polarity treatment; got my BA in Business Admin (which I only ever used to do my own taxes, which got pretty complicated in my later years, so I guess the degree was worth the effort); and, of course, more sex, drugs and r ‘n r. Much later I did the est Training, but that wasn’t until I left Nor Cal for my hometown again (to care for my aging, sainted mother, austensibly; but really it was to be with an old flame I’d left there long ago) I always thought it funny that I never did the est Training while living in the est heartland — it’s kind of like the native New Yorkers who never made it to the Statue of Liberty. The truth is that, having moved from the land of enlightenment back to the land of endarkenment, I desperately needed the life preserver that was est.
Fast forward forty years. That’s actually how it seems (fast forwarded), for I struggle to remember a great many of the details of those forty years. They say that when faced with death, your life flashes before your eyes. As I have slowly approached death, at the speed of life, however, my life seems to be slowly erasing itself before my eyes. Days bleed into more days. Events pile up in a forgotten savings account. My second wife is still with me (God knows why) and still encourages me in whatever idiocy I undertake. It took every mistake I ever made, every wrong turn, every stumble, every sane and insane thought I ever had to get me to this point.
They say that life is what you make of it. This is what I’ve made of mine. My life is blessed.