Ol GM

First and foremost (sp?) please recognize that all patients will be called by their initials so as to avoid any nasty lawsuits (although im sure they wont find me or give a shit about my internaut ramblings).

At this point in my life i was living in Halifax having just finished University. It was 2003, I was 23 (im pretty sure, please feel free to step in if you know me) and living in the southend right around the corner from St Marys University.

The Eastcoast isnt particularly known for its abundance of jobs and as a result one (particularly me) had to scrape by. This isnt to say that i was living in complete destitution, just to say that I had a string of shitty jobs most of them 'character building'.

This job was by far the most interesting of all the jobs that i had. Sadly i didnt keep a diary of the call center job i had later on. Ideally if this should come to an abrupt end, i will try to remember bits and pieces.

Regardless. My sister, girlfriend at the time and I all applied for jobs through an independent healthcare provider. Essentially as a result of the lack of nurses (nationally if im not mistaken) there were 6 to 10 patients to one nurse. Needless to say some of these patients would have head injuries or would react poorly to medication and would need extra supervision so as not to hurt themselves or others. It was our jobs to make sure of this. Training was paid and took about a month to complete. After that it was out of the pan and into the fire as they say. Shifts were 12 hours long from 8am to 8pm or 8pm to 8am which always left one absolutely exhausted. Your entire schedule would be fucked and it never helped that Nova Scotia shutdown completely on sundays.

Pay was acceptable (considering minimum wage was probably in the realm of 7 or 8 dollars) however you would have to work at least 3 shifts a week to make a viable living. Your coworkers were generally other students, the elderly or dregs of society. When i say dregs i dont mean convicts, carnies or child molesters, i mean losers. You know, the type that cant, wont and have never had a break. The type that would spend their last cent on an uninsured porsche to impress their exgirlfriend only to crash it on their way to their house (this is another story that was told to me, hilarious, yet depressing, ill try and fit it in somewhere someday if im reminded).

Anyways, back to the job. Usually youd bring your meal with you and sometimes youd get to eat the patients (simply because they didnt want it, not cuz you stole it). You could always bring a book or crosswords and sometimes you could sneak a watch of the patients tv if they were asleep (though we werent supposed to). Day shifts sometimes family would visit so you could go and wander the halls, whereas nightshifts most often pateints would sleep (unless they were suffering from nightterrors).

I do believe that this was my very first patient.
GM enjoyed going for walks and was fresh to the hospital. His family was without a doubt working class and lovely. It comprised of a son and a daughter who were typical eastcoasters in the way that they would talk to you as if they had know you for years. Within the first 30 minutes of meeting them i found out that
(a) the son wanted to get tattoos. These tattoos were to be specifically of the McMahon family on his back with a giant WWE symbol. Ill go ahead and assume he was a wrestling fan.
(b) the daughter was married with one kid. Her husband was a truckdriver 'with an incredible handlebar mustache.'

Ill stop their briefly to publicly chastise myself for not going into detail about his mustache. What did it look like? Whos was it similar to? Were their bits of food stuck in it?

Back to the wife:

She was a sweetheart and her husband was a busdriver.

I will now go into a description of GM.
Apparently he looked vaguely like a mix of Vincent Price and one of my old philosophy professors. He also seemed to enjoy calling me clodhopper as i was noisey.

I do recall (especially as it says in my bloody notes) that late that night as he was tucked in bed he began to talk to my backpack that was sat next to my chair. I then realized that he believed my bag to be a dog. At this point things took a turn for the best.

As i mentioned previously he did enjoy a good walk in the halls and could do so for hours. It was during one of such walks that we encountered another patient (head trauma victim, hes in a later entry, i assure you). The other patient was pretty obviously in rough shape, maniacal grin, drool from the lower lip, shuffling jovially. The two gentlemen stopped and looked each other up and down. It lasted but a moment. As we walked away GM looked at me and said "And ya think Im weird".

PS
He kept his comb in his sock the whole time i was there and would use it periodically.