True Story

“Do you know what the nurse put on your chart?”

“No, tell me.” He was laughing.

“Deathly afraid of needles with an extremely high pain tolerance.”

“Hey, whatever works. Now can we get this thing out of my leg?” I smirked at him and he continued to give me his I-still-can’t-believe-you smile, then said “This is a lot easier than the nurse thinks it will be. Take the ice pack off your leg, I’ll be right back.” Hey, I sure as hell wasn’t planning on this. I just wanted to get home. I’m sitting in the freaking health center with only half my packing done, my boyfriend sitting in the lobby probably laughing at me, and my ride to go home anxiously awaiting our departure. I’d rather be kissing Jesse or in a car on my way home to Connecticut. Trust me.

A few minutes later he walked in with a gauze rope and two women. This was beginning to seem a little scary. “Mind if they watch?” I just gave him a funny look and nodded an OK. “Now, we tie the rope around the loop in the wire. Tight. Make sure there’s no slack, and it’s good and long.” He was leaning over me and I suddenly felt like a fool sitting in front of two British women with my skirt pulled up to my ass and a doctor who couldn’t stop smirking.

“Do you fish often?” one of the women asked.

“My Dad used to.” The real details seemed a little too complicated.

“How did you…?”

“Lifting my duffle bag. It musta been stuck on the bottom or something.”

The doctor continued talking to the women. “Put gentle pressure down to disengage the barb and, on the count of three…one, TWO!”

“Wow, you’re good,” I mused. “So tell me, do they teach you this at med school? ‘Cuz somehow I don’t see it being a very common occurance.” My leg was bleeding, but I didn’t feel a thing. The fish hook was in the doctor’s hand. “Naw, read it in a fishing magazine! My buddy had to help me do the same thing when I landed a backwards cast into the back of my neck.”

“Ouch!”

“Wanna keep it as a souvenier? Bring it home, show your dad, pout and get some milage out of the fact that his fish hook was stuck in your leg.”

“You bet your ass I do.” Two-thirty. My ride and I were due to leave at three, and I still had packing to do. Yeah, funny story about how I was almost late getting home because of a fish hook in my leg. Lemme tell you, I’ll be rethinking my policy on bait and tackle this summer. And it’s also the last time I’ll be keeping my father’s duffle bag in the cellar.