Bed Panned

It seems as if my health has become the number one topic in my life and I'm sure that delights you no end. There's nothing I enjoy more than listening to someone complain about how poorly he feels. Actually, for someone in so miserable a shape as I am, I feel pretty good...most of the time.
Saturday night was an exception to that. I was getting ready for bed and my heart started pounding. At first I thought that was because I had a new pair of Superman Returns pajamas with footies. But by the time I got into bed, my heart was racing so rapidly that I felt I was about to pass out. This happened just a few weeks ago. I finally told my wife...well, I didn't actually tell her. I clutched at my heart and began to moan. Within thirty minutes she got the picture.
When I explained what was happening, she lovingly said, "We can't afford to be taking you to the emergency room every time you feel a little faint." Well, she didn't actually say those exact words, but I could tell that's what she was thinking. Anyway, I finally crawled back to the closet, took my Supermans off and redressed.
I get to the hospital, and after they do an EKG, they put me in one of those little gurney beds in the emergency room. They hooked me up to a monitoring device, stuck a needle in my hand, just to be sticking something somewhere, and abandoned me.
I lay there for the next 4 hours waiting. They did leave the TV on, but by this time of night, all that was on were infomercials. I kept trying to get someone's attention because after the first hour, nature began to call, first softly, then louder and louder. Finally, I was able to grab hold of the side railing of the bed with one hand and lean over, suspending my body in mid-air, while I reached for the call button. I couldn't reach it, but I could jab at it, which started the button swaying on the cord. Acrobatically, I finally got it to swing to within my grasp. After I had punched the button, I waited no more than another half hour until a nurse comes in my room to see why I was interrupting their card game.
"Can you unhook me so I can use the restroom," I asked with about the same meekness Oliver Twist displayed in asking for more gruel. The woman leaves the room, as if she needs to get permission for me to go to the bathroom. She comes back with a plastic pitcher. I was hoping that wouldn't happen. I had a gown on, about 20 wires attached to various parts of my body, a plastic tumbler, hooked to a needle sticking out of my arm, and a blood pressure cuff sliding down the other arm. And, they expect me to use this little narrow-mouth pitcher? Since I had been feeling the urge for over an hour, I used the pitcher.
I got back into bed, readjusted all my wires and watched my heart rate on the monitor, only because that was more interesting than the infomercial for a course in stock trading. And I waited...and waited...and waited. Finally the doctor came in and said the heart doctor wanted to see me before they would release me. So I waited some more. I tried to sleep but the nurses (male and female) were having such a rollicking good time out in the hall that I couldn't fall asleep. I've been in quieter pool halls than this emergency room.
Finally, at about three-thirty Sunday morning I decided I had to get out of there. It wasn't a matter of wanting to leave. I had to. I really thought I was going to have some sort of panic attack. I pulled one of the wires off my chest. That started the bell ringing. I figured when a nurse responded to the ringing, I'd tell her I wanted to leave. No one ever came. I guess they figured that if I were dead, there was nothing they could do anyway, and if a wire were just loose, it was no cause for alarm.
I don't know why the nurses didn't get tired of the ringing. Maybe the clanking of glasses as they toasted one another drowned out the noise of my alarm bell. So, I pulled off another wire, and then another, until, before long, like Eric Clapton, I was unplugged.
I removed the little clip from my finger and the cuff from my arm. Still no one showed up. The only thing that stood between me and freedom was this needle sticking out of my hand. I started peeling off the bandages, and then grabbed the needle and ripped it from my flesh. Sure, I bled profusely, but it felt so good to be free. I put my clothes on and scurried out the door. I cleverly skulked down the hall, and out of the building. My wife was waiting outside, and in a scene that would remind one of the raid on Entebbe, I was gone.
I giggled like a teenager. Sometimes doing something daring and bold is refreshing. The cool thing is that my heart didn't skip a beat through the entire escape. Actually, I felt better than I had in years.
My wife thinks I'm crazy. I say, go ahead put me in an asylum. Lock me up in a straight jacket. I'm ready for my next great escape.