From Hospital Room to the Streets of Compton

Dear Readers,

The last couple of days are a kind of blur, thanks to pain and pain killers. But there are a few happenings that I would like to share with you that I've experienced on my little vacation from reality.

First off, the St. Alphonsus surgery center is pretty high class. You get your own pre-surgery room, complete with glass doors, a shared bathroom, a small HDTV with DirectTV, and a few ceiling panels featuring photos of the tops of pine trees next to blue sky. Please note that the panels did not correspond, and had regular white panels scattered around them. I told my mom it was so you would be forced to use your imagination...a cruel trick in the hospital.

For some reason, they had me show up for my surgery at 11:00am. They didn't wheel me under the knife until 3:30pm. So with a lot of time to kill, I made friends with my nurse, Lucy, and watched a lot of tv. Lucy was from Uganda. She hummed and made quiet little jokes and was careful to tuck my prewarmed blanket all around me. Next to my mother, she's the closest I've ever come to encountering a saint.

As for television viewing, it was strange how many of the shows on featured food. Please note that I had not eaten since 9:00pm the previous night, so this was a horrible way to treat a hungry Badger girl. None the less, I still got some enjoyment out of watching a show on the Travel Channel about sandwiches. It really grossed my mom and I out, watching people gorge themselves on ridiculously huge piles of meat in between two measly pieces of bread. My favorite featured sandwich was a BLT that had 20 strips (or 2 lbs) of bacon on it. I love bacon as much as the next guy, but is two pounds in a meal really necessary? The restaurant owner when asked about it just chuckled and said, "I like my customers to leave full and happy.". It almost seems like a form of assisted suicide to me.

My other experience I'd like to share was my viewing of "Boyz in da Hood". Shay and I came across this title last night as we worked our way through our Netflix options. We both remember this Cuba Gooding Jr./Ice Cube flick as being extremely badass and hardcore. The sad truth of the matter was that it reminded us both of an after school special about black people. The violence was minimal, the drug use was non existent, and the action was best displayed at a barbecue scene where one of the girls insists on being called something other than a "ho". It made Compton look like a subdivision in Meridian. I guess after watching "The Wire" we'll never look at gangsta movies the same. After all, Shay and I know what it's like to be from the streets, y'all.

Sincerely,
h.