Closed Captioning-Altered Version.

Closed Caption.

It was a busy day; rather a chaotic day! Nothing seemed to go smoothly that day. The situation was wearing down the mortals swiftly. The high acuity in the unit was leading to paucity of patience.

As I was seriously contemplating, a colleague cozily meandered towards me. As she bent down towards my ear, I had an eerie feeling that she would literally bite my ear off. Such was the prevailing perception. She gently whispered in to my eager ears. It was Valentine’s Day! The whisper lingered just too long for a simple “we all love you”. A smile flashed on my mulling face, as I peeked at the distraught laced face. Smile, when you don’t understand was my philosophy, as it addresses 90% of the situations without repercussions.

In the midst of mess and distress, as I pose to be in less stress, and hence, not anticipating a better response, she ambled away. I noticed in the meantime, alarms denoting serious problem going off. I rushed to the baby’s bed side to assess and make appropriate changes.  The at-risk seemed at-best now. I discussed and dispersed from the bedside.

The whisperer strode to my chair huffing and puffing. “You can’t keep secrets can you?”- She looked irked and piqued. Surprise surfaced on my stoic face. I never heard any secrets, except for non-specific valentine wishes from her; that was what at least I thought she did! Hence, my dumb smile! I paused to ponder. “Secrets, which one?” I inquired. “Forget it!”, whisperer was visibly upset and marched away. I slowly walked towards her, and confessed my ignorance about her distress. “If I confide in you about an annoying colleague, you just don’t have to divulge it to her in such a swift manner” she burst out. I pointed towards my ear and confessed “don’t tell me secrets, not because I can’t keep them, but because I can’t hear them”. She then noticed the lack of aids of hearing and laughed out loudly.

Later, I was at a party. It was dim and had din. I was jiving to a lilting tune with my better half. A well-dressed man walked up to me and whispered. I laughed and said “you are right” concurring with him instantly about the peppy song. My laughter was cut short, when my wife answered him “his name is P…….”. Obviously, agreeing with something you don’t understand could be unseemly upsetting. If you whisper, I cannot decipher. If you still choose to do so, I need closed captioning from someone!