Saturday, January 12, 2008

I Know What's Important

You never know how valuable soda is until you are doing medical disaster work after a Hurricane and you are trading favors for Diet Coke.

Not those kind of favors! Get your mind out of the gutter. At least for a little while.

When I went to Mississippi with a group of nurses after Hurricane Katrina, we found that it's the little things you miss. The little things like Diet Coke. One of our nurses finagled a case of DC from some volunteer firefighters (I don't even WANT to know how) and we protected it like a meth head protects his last hit from his girlfriend's cousin's sister.

We had it wrapped up in our bedrolls, hidden from prying eyes. Whenever we felt the need to imbibe, we attacked the gym like Navy Seals on a mission to save the only person who knows the code to stop the nuclear bomb from exploding. One lookout, one distractor, one to grab the soda, one to hide it on a sideways pass, and one to just stand there and look good.

When we flew out and landed at the airport in Minneapolis, I think I downed 3 Diet Cokes within the first 10 minutes on solid ground.

It's the little things in life that matter.

2 comments:

Orthette said...

I seem to remember a carefully guarded beverage stash in the coaches' office too. A stash that, now that I think about it, was actually hidden for some Navy types in addition to some highly deserving nurses... :)

Julie said...

Ah yes - you are right. Good thing you are around. I knew there was a reason I liked you!