Constance Falls Off The Horse

We don't have a picture of the horse in question, nor the beautiful stables to show you, but Constance was tossed off a horse this week and, thank God, didn't break anything. I did the usual fatherly test of rotating and lifting all the joints in question, and said she'd be sore for three days on her shoulder but that she'd be fine. The next morning, of course, was a different story. She was in pain, and it hurt to move her right arm, and so we went to the Ospedale Civico, the same one we took Walker to when Chesterton cast a fish hook into his head.

The hospital has a triage system that we discovered the real meaning of: if you don't enter the Emergency Room bleeding and screaming, well... prepare to wait a while. Code Red gets seen right away, Code Yellow gets seen second, and Constance, our brave little Code Greener, got to sit in reception for five hours, which gave us all enough time to make up the other codes:

Code Blue: We'll see you before your body turns blue.
Code Purple: We'll remove your corpse before we get promoted to better jobs.
Code Black: We'll bury you before your body begins to stink up our lobby.

But we had fun drinking capuccino and hot chocolate from a machine and tasting the new flavors of Kit-Kat bars for lunch, and I got a few pictures of the funny experience to share with you.


Constance laughing over what "Code Green" really means: Hobbits get seen last of all!



Bring out the machine that goes ping!


Constance asking for donations from hospital staff to buy more Kit-Kat bars. No wait, this is the picture of her putting her arm in position for the X-ray.


For her troubles, Constance got a new pair of red suspenders. She wore them as a brace to hold up her arm. After all that, five hours plus an x-ray, the doctor rotated and lifted all the joints in question and then told her that "she'd be sore for three days on her shoulder but that she'd be fine."

I left the hospital thinking: I should have gone to medical school.

Next week: Constance Gets Back On The Horse.