As I sat down again to the papers, the doorbell rang. Nobody else appeared to be on doorbell duty, so I went to the front of the house. There was a young man in a white shirt and black tie. He was proselytizing for a religious group. I informed him that our house had adopted a “no religious rep policy.” This helps us to avoid being unduly influenced by reps, though I must admit I still use my Taoist pen. It’s a Zen-Pen: one side writes, the other doesn’t.
Finally, I returned to my seat. At that point, the room plunged into darkness. A moment of panic. Quickly, I took my own pulse, a technique I had learned from the medical literature. Once calmed, I went through the differential. The power might be out for the whole city or just the house. Perhaps a fuse had blown from one too many electronic entertainment devices. Or maybe mice had chewed through a power cable. As I pondered my next course of diagnostic action and reviewed my alternatives in an evidence-based and allorhythmic approach, I auscultated a series of breath sounds that might be interpreted as gasps or giggles.
I intuitively realized that it was a severe case of “little girls playing a joke on Dad by switching off the light.” I had two choices. The first was to be crabby and bellow for them to quit playing with the switch. I felt this to be a harsh choice with bad potential side effects. Instead, I ducked under the table and silently hid. When proper lighting was restored, they were amazed to see I had vanished, and when they came to investigate, I revealed myself and uttered the key phrase: “Boo!” A riotous wrestling match ensued, which led to the injury of a family heirloom and my spine.
It was time for bed, despite my elder son’s complaint of a type of chronic insomnia only remediable by late-night cartoon observation. Evening reading began. Such important journals as Click Clack Moo, P.J. Funnybunny Camps Out, and the Stinky Cheese Man and Other Fairly Stupid Tales were on the agenda.
As I drifted off to sleep, the phone rang. It was a wrong number. Several hours later, an emergency call for supplemental H2O was answered. Two hours after that, I awoke to a hideous scream; it was a nightmare. My alarm rang at 6:15, and I jumped from bed refreshed. No, that’s a lie. I stumbled from bed after hitting the snooze button four times. Morning nutrition rounds were a stale toaster pastry and coffee. Team Newman noted that there were last-minute reports not finished for school and preparation for a day of testing.
I drove to work exhausted after a night of Home. TH
Dr. Newman is the physician editor of The Hospitalist. He’s also consultant, Hospital Internal Medicine, and assistant professor of internal medicine and medical history, Mayo Clinic College of Medicine, Rochester, Minn.