Never expected this

Not wishing to brag or anything, but I’m an exemplar of the, speed-of-light, judgment generator school. One and done. That’s it. You’re gone.

Thank heavens, I fell under the sway of Pete Hamill’s words. Haven’t heard of Pete? He died in 2020, but many years prior to kicking the bucket, he was a quintessential New York essayist and raconteur. His words were pungent and memorable. Ironically, this often sharp-tongued man’s obituary boosted a wake-up call to my humanity:

“Pete Hamill yearned to know what was yearning to be better in other people.”

Unlike me, the speedy judgment generator…

Wherever you landed, Pete, thank you! Read on…

A few years back, I needed several months of weekly subcutaneous shots in my belly. Fun, eh? The injection generally took about five seconds - ouch - and finis. A couple of months into this weekly routine of baring my tummy, I’d received the injection only from female nurses. Next visit, I had a male nurse, rather disheveled, probably in his 50s. His stock-in-trade appeared to be joking around with patients to relax them.

As I bared my belly for the injection (modesty seems to diminish greatly with age), he said “don’t bare too much skin because I don’t have any money to pay you.” Whoa! I mean, WHOA! His, supposedly, jokey comment was clearly a reference to women as prostitutes. I was not going let that pass (and live with myself), even though I’d already bared my belly for the injection. I’m sure this was part of his “let’s relax the patient shtick,” but not with this patient! I managed to mutter something like “I really didn’t appreciate that remark.”

Silence.

That long needled-syringe was now heading directly toward my belly (accompanied by a little imagined Twilight Zone theme music.) We’d just experienced a very strange and uncomfortable moment. Yours truly was tense and judging. Heaven knows what the RN was thinking. He was armed with a syringe, and my belly, vulnerably bared.

Shock. This blankety-blank RN chose to walk me through a breathing exercise while giving the injection. An incredibly relaxing breathing exercise, leaving my eyes wanting to close. The pain of the syringe’s entrance into my belly’s real estate? Absolutely negligible.

Completely confounded my judgments about this man. My judgment-generator took a breather. Pete Hamill’s description of digging-deep to find someone’s humanity made an appearance. Thar she blows (in that RN with the syringe.)

A revivified version from Nov. 5, 2025

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