Georgetterox

People said, a shop attendant is the most boring job of the whole world.

Coz what they do is just standing up, waiting for customers asking for help about stuffs.

Though customers don’t always wanna be served.; mostly they just get snobly into the shop and try each outfits and shoes inside, then they put them at the display awkwardly.

And usually customers don’t even try hard for greeting the attendants who had opened the door and spoke, “Good morning, Ma’am, is there anything we can help you?”; the greeted ones don’t even smile and shake their head, they don’t even look aside.

As if the attendants are just mannequins. Am I right?

I probably would never aware it if this incident didn’t happen, thanx to the super-duper-crazy thing that I have done. This story, I was accompanying my family to the souvenir shop.

While my mom and my sista was busy of picking up the batik, I had already died of bore on my own.

It doesn’t mean I don’t like batik; I’m even its number one fan; it’s just thin inside my wallet right now, and my family absolutely picked up the wrong date for souvenir shopping.

So rather than having muscleache of waiting for my mom and sista, I preferred taking my nieces and nephew a tour around the shop. I taught them things, about souvenirs actually.

I took them to a set of angklung displayed there, then I said to my 8-year-old niece, “Bill, this is angklung. It sounds like this.. klenong-klenong-klenong..” Oops, that’s not the right sound, is it? LOL..

Then I took the kids trying each masks there, such as the Hanoman mask  and even the Rahwana mask. My nephew, O’a, 5, shouted, “Hih! Tante, you look like a devil!”

“Am I scary?” I asked from inside the mask.

“Nope,” said O’a. “Pretty devil..”

Did he mean that I’m pretty in mask? LOL!

So I tried to teach nieces and nephew that devil is not as scary as they watched at the stupid scenes on tv.

Including teaching that mannequins ain’t scary?

“Tante, is that a mannequin?” O’a pointed at a mannequin of a Dutch lady in a hat sitting on the hall.

It bent looked like gazing at her shoes, its hat covering its face.

I was intended to seduce my nephew. “Is that a mannequin or a lady?”

“That’s mannequin,” said O’a.

“A lady!” replied Bill.

“Mannequin!” O’a insisted.

“Let’s see, is that a mannequin or a lady?” I asked O’a looked inside the mannequin’s face.

O’a shook his head of scared. Bill was shy.

Me, as an aunty who paid responsible of teaching her nephew and nieces of being brave, came forward in confident. “Let’s see!” I neared the mannequin, then I touched its hand.

And suddenly.. I swear!

The mannequin looked up its head, then I saw a pair of wrinkled eyes which looked like had just woken up of their sleeps, gazing at me.

OMG…she’s alive!!

O’a laughed out loud. I stepped backward of shocked and laughed instead. Damn it..shame of me!

That was a real lady, about 85 year-old, as old as my grandma, put up there in purpose of being mascot in a Dutch lady costume! That’s crab, why would there be an old woman love being a mascot?!

I thought she was a mannequin!

I took Bill’s hand, and Bill still laughed out loud. “Huahahaha! Tante, you’re a bad girl!”

It didn’t seem another choice for me beside laughing too.

Well, rather than running away leaving my mom and my sista who were still sunk among the batiks?

I finally said to the mannequin.. I mean, the mascot, “I’m sorry, Ma’am..”

Said the lady smiling, “Oh, never mind. Thank you..”

Thank you for what? Thank you for apologize?

Thank you for greeting an old shop attendant who covered as a mannequin?

Thank you for waking her up from her sleep?!

I don’t wanna pretend as a teacher for my nieces and nephew anymore. I swear!

For my fellas in Jogja, who often passed the souvenir shop at Malioboro, if you often see an old lady who often becomes a mascot right there (they said she often changes her costume, sometimes she dresses a Dutch, sometimes she often wears a kraton kebaya includes her konde), say hi to her, OK?

Tell her that I wrote this to make my embarrassment feel better.

And to prevent the other fellas from being tricked like me. It’s absolutely the miseducation of me!

This lady, rushes into her own room in her office, then she locked the door.

Then she got down on her knees, kept her fingers crossed, and sighed,

“God..oh my God. Today, I’ve seen a family looking at me.

A man with grey along his whole hair and wrinkled eyes of age, a standing still young man but looked exhausted of sleepless for days, a young girl in her lousy shawl unchanged for nights, and little children looked at me with eyes full of questions.

Could I rescue their wife, mother, and grandma, from death?

How am I supposed to tell them that this woman has already died?

That You’ve taken her, and I couldn’t do anything except a f*cking in-vain life-saving procedure?”

I remember when I saw this patient last night.

This family pushed her on a cart, an old woman coughed all the time.

I neared her to ask her, where she felt the ache.

But before I asked her, she had interrupted me with another cough, then she took a black plastic bag that she’d put next to her.

Then she spat her sputum into it, and I was amazed to see her red-brownish sputum.

I asked her son how long this had been going on.

Her son would answer, but the patient interrupted earlier, “Ah, it’s just been a week.”

She lied, damn it. It’s been longer. “Why has she just been here now?” I asked her son.

“Well,” said her son. “I work. I just could take Mother here coz tomorrow’s holiday.”

But the X-ray photo imaged that the patient had a very extended pneumonia.

I don’t know which one is true: This is a wild infection and has grown fast only in a week; or this is a months-aged infection but the family has just taken her now for cure.

I hospitalized her. But the family couldn’t get the medications.

Coz, they’ve left the insurance card at home.

Though with the insurance, they could get the drugs for free.

The drugs cost a lot, and the family didn’t wanna buy them, and they preferred waiting till the morning comes so they could take the card at home for taking the meds.

And she was getting worse. She stopped talking.

Many times the nurses got her stop breathing.

They must press the heart many times, so the patient would re-breathe.

The family didn’t know a thing; for them, that’s better coz their mother doesn’t cough anymore.

Well, she doesn’t. In fact, she doesn’t wake up anymore.

I phoned my senior. He said, “Allright, Vicky, rush her into the ICU.”

I said, “Doc, the ICU is full.”

Then he answered, “OK, just drive her a full-observation, OK?”

He meant, watch out, maybe she’s dead.

I almost lost my voice as I told my nurses then.

Prepare the ambu bag. Prepare the adrenaline and sulfas atropine.

Said my nurses, “Doc, this patient hasn’t even paid the infuse, are we gonna give her the medications, too?”

I told her, “Just prepare them, for God’s sake!”

My nurse rushed to the pharmacy for stock drugs.

She returned an half hour later bringing the drug that I asked for, right at the moment when the patient got apnea again.

I touch her. Her lung has stopped. Her heart has stopped. My nurses massage her heart.

I tell them, let’s inject those ampules now.

But the patient still don’t breathe. The family just prays. Istighfar. Takbir. Al-Fatihah.

“C’mon, say it loud, all the prayers that you ever learn.

Pre-dining prayer. Pre-shower prayer. Pre-pee prayer. Maybe God will hear.”

It’s been twenty minutes that the patient has got apnea. I hear the grandchildren crying.

Her daughter sobs in a lousy handkerchief. Her husband mourns on the corner.

Only her son still gathers the rest of his voice to ask, “What time was it, Doc?”

It, the time of death. So he can mention it at the press conference of the funeral tomorrow.

Then he takes his phone, then he speaks to somebody, “Kang.. Ibu tos taya..”

(Brother.. Mother’s not here anymore..)

I surrender. I tell my nurses to stop massaging.

Then I close her eyes, and I cover the blanket to the top of her head.

The family’s crying bursts in the air.

I run leaving the grief room, then I wash my hands under the water. I’m so tired, I’m so sad.

I remember my boss yesterday yelled at my ear,

“Why did the colonel who complained his fatigue get mad coz you didn’t serve his well? Have I told you that we are servant, servant, servant?!

Do you still wanna work at this place or not?!”

I’d like to tell him that another poor patient has died at our hospital.

Died coz unable of buying medications.

But I think a report about a dying poor patient is not interesting enough for him.

Except if the dead was a colonel.

So I rush into my own room, then I get down on my knees, and I sigh to my God, my real boss.

“God..oh my God. Today, I’ve seen a family looking at me…”

How many of us are celebrity-wannabe?

When some of us aware that it’s impossible for us to be a celeb, then admit it, how many of us wanna be closed to celeb, by being the celeb’s buddy, or even become the celeb’s family?

Let’s read this story of mine.

Once upon a night at my office, someone brought his neighbour into the ER.

A doctor at the ER thought that it was stroke, so he inhospitalized the patient.

So they pushed the patient to the sale and a nurse admitted him.

Suddenly, the patient’s accompanier shocked the nurse,

“Where da hell is dr Vicky? Is she gonna come?!”

The nurse got confused. She wondered why the accompanier looked for dr Vicky.

She thought the patient was admitted of stroke, so a neurologist must take care of him.

Dr Vicky that she knew wasn’t a neurologist. And she answered in calm, “Dr Vicky is not here.”

The patient’s accompanier snapped her then, “I’m her uncle! Where’s dr Vicky?!”

Again, she got dazed. The uncle, but didn’t have dr Vicky’s look?

Dr Vicky that she knew were beautiful, but this man who confessed as her uncle, looked worse than Ugly Betty..

*Stop throwing your sandal to your compie or you’ll break it!*

“Dr Vicky is not around,” said the nurse fiercely.

Not at that late, when dr Vicky probably was enjoying ice cream  comfily at home.

After she found out further, the patient’s accompanier was the patient’s neighbour who lived across the street.

So there he went home, this man who confessed as dr Vicky’s uncle, failed to meet the niece, oops.. the doctor that he was looking for.

The next day, dr Vicky was passing by the salle as she was walking to her own room.

The nurse certainly called her, “Doc! Doc! Your uncle was looking for you last night!”

Dr Vicky was surprised. “Whose uncle?“

Answered the nurse, “I didn’t ask his name, Doc.

He’s the neighbour of a new stroke patient admitted last night. The patient named Mr Pheno.

That man, he said he was your uncle, he lived across the street of the patient’s house.”

Dr Vicky wasn’t still connected yet. “Where’s the patient’s address?”

“Baros Place.”

“Zooster,” I replied, sounded confused and also funny. “I don’t have any uncle lived in Baros Place.”

And it’s true.

A lot of people love confessing as our uncle. I wonder why this man does.

He might’ve thought that he could make his neighbour admitted for free, if he confessed as an uncle of me who accidentally worked there.

“But this kinda lie is too cheap and too corny for me.”

I understand, for a common failed celeb-wannabe, it’ll be much easier if we confess as the celeb’s family.

These are the tips to prevent the confessions of being sounded as lies for free-consumptions:

* Don’t ever confess as the uncle or the aunt of the celeb if you wanna ask for extra attention.

But admit as the husband, the boyfriend, or if necessary: the secret lover.

It guarantees everybody to look aside to you.

* Recognize the celeb, where’s her position that you can use.

If the celeb is a dentist, don’t ask for free-admission if you’ve got a knee-ache. It’s called disconnected.

* Snap to the right person.

For example, if the celeb work as the stage manager of Java Jazz, and you want a free ticket.

Snap directly to the promoter of Java Jazz that you’re the family of the stage manager; not snap to the security guard.

* If all of the tips above are useless, then dial up directly to the celeb’s cellphone.

You said that you are her family, then why don’t you have her number?!

I swear, I didn’t know that Harry went to Afghanistan.

I always thought that Harry was in college or some place like that.

So when I found his picture holding a rifle in his soldier uniform  in a newspaper, and the paper claimed that the picture was taken at Afghanistan, I got shocked.

How could Harry go to Afghanistan without tell me before? ;P

*sounds a thrown sandal*

Two days after I saw the picture, Harry was called home to England.

The queen told him to go back, coz if he stayed there, fast or slow those al-Qaedans would love to make Harry  the primary target, and it would endanger the position of the British force which was pursuing al-Qaeda, and finally it would endanger the total conditions of the force.

That’s the weak point if the soldier was a future-king.

That’s why each soldier-recruitments must be within fit-and-proper-test.

If necessary, celebrity ain’t allowed for being soldier (this must be read by every national force which has recruited Elvis Presley and Won Bin).

What will happen if a battle is happening, then suddenly the soldiers stop shooting each other coz the enemy is concerned about autograph-request and photo in camera-HP?

“Up your hands on the air! Or I will shoot!”

“Wait! I’ll surrender in one term condition!”

“What’s your condition, bastard?”

“May I have your autograph, please?”

“Oh, you want my autograph? Why didn’t you tell me from the start?”

Well, what’d happen if the al-Qaedans really requested for Harry’s autograph and asked him to take poses for them?

So the al-Qaedans would be concerned to show their pictures with Harry, to their family at home, so they’d forget their mission for recruiting the Afghans youth for being their soldiers.

They’d forget the battle, and the chaos at Afghanistan wouldn’t be as hot as today.

And the result, surely the UN soldiers would lose their job coz they wouldn’t have more reasons for arresting the al-Qaedans, and the war journalists would lose their objects of work coz the battle at Afghanistan had stopped.

So, the Harry’s existence as celebrity certainly declined the amount of job at Afghanistan, so it implicated to the improvement of joblessness. No wonder, Harry must be called home.

When I was a kid, I always wanna be a celeb.

I wished everybody asked my autograph everywhere I go.

Then I wished them to ask me to take picture with them.

Now I’m grown up, and everywhere I walk, I’m requested for autograph, especially for the patients’ prescriptions.

My pictures are on-line each night, and there’s always somebody new ask me where to meet me (“Vic, I wanna go to your office, so I can ask for free sick-letter!”).

 

I’ve been alive for 25 years, but I still haven’t been a celeb.

Harry only could enjoy being a common pilot for 10 weeks, but thanks to a stupid German press who’s published his picture holding a rifle at Afghanistan, Harry must turn back to be a celeb.

I’ve just realized, “Popularity probably costs a thing, but privacy really costs much more.” 

Harry couldn’t buy his privacy.

And I really thank God, we, the common people, still can afford it.