They got a wheelchair to discharge me from the hospital, mostly to appease my sister I suspect, and came to my room to get me while they plied my sister with discharge forms. The nurse lifted me out of the crib and sat me in the center of the seat of the wheelchair. My legs were too short to reach the foot rests and dangled off the end of the seat. The nurse shook her head at the safety hazard my small size presented and decided to use another method to secure me to the chair. She had heard about my accident and how unhappy the head nurse was when she had to fill out the accident report forms. My nurse didn’t want to be blamed if another accident befell me.
She pulled the belt that was fastened to the rear of the seat and brought it around me to lay on my lap. Then she buckled the safety strap around me and snugged it down tight before she wheeled me back to the nurse’s station. The unit clerk had just finished going over the discharge instructions from the doctor regarding my care with my sister when we approached the station and the nurse who was pushing the wheelchair said, “Miss Hawkins?”
“Yes?”, she answered.
“I have your brother here,” the nurse told her.
“Where?”, my sister inquired, looking thoroughly baffled.
“Here in the wheelchair,” the nurse explained.
“Which wheelchair?”, my sister asked stupidly.
The conversation was rapidly becoming reminiscent of an old Abbot and Costello routine. I shook my head and put it into my hands in exasperation. “This wheelchair!”, the nurse said.
“Where?”, my sister asked.
“Here!”, the nurse answered.
“Where’s my brother?”, my sister queried, discounting my presence and looking around the room.
“In the wheelchair!”, the nurse exclaimed in dismay.
“Which wheelchair?”, my sister asked, starting another round of whose on first.
“This wheelchair!”, the nurse replied to my sister’s straight line.
I groaned, the conversation was getting worse by the minute. Loathe as I was to get involved with the two of them, I had no choice if I was to get out of the hospital sometime that day.
“Hi, Sis!”, I said, introducing a new variable into the conversation.
“Hello, little boy!”, my sister said pleasantly, “Have you seen my brother?”
“I am your brother, Sis!”, I told her.
“You can’t be my brother, you’re only a little boy. My brother is a full grown man!”, my sister told me.
“Nonetheless, I’m your brother, Sis!”, I insisted.
My sister bent over me and said earnestly, “You shouldn’t fib, little boy! It’s very naughty!”
“I’m not fibbing, Sis!”, I exclaimed.
The head nurse came out of her office after hearing the commotion and said, “He’s telling the truth, Miss Hawkins.”
My sister looked nonplused and said, “There must be some mistake. My brother isn’t a little boy! He’s forty years old!”
I couldn’t help it, the line was too good a lead-in for the obvious reply. I said, “That’s an odd coincidence, so am I!”
My sister caught on that I was playing with her and said, “This is some kind of joke!”
“Funny, that’s what I said when you made me the mittens with six fingers,” I replied.