2143. Hospital visitation

Of course, I was brought up properly; not like the unfortunate nobodies in the hospital beds next to me. There’s Arnie on my right and Lenny to my left. You can tell they were never brought up right by their parents when you see the riff-raff that visit them every day. They’re loud and rude. Just yesterday one of the visitors farted loudly and everyone screamed with laughter. Not my cup of tea I’m afraid.

I said to Arnie when everyone had gone, “That was a bit rude wasn’t it?” He just laughed it off like it was nothing. “Not in a public place,” I said. “That’s the height of being inconsiderate.”

The same goes for Larry on the other side. His visitors are just as boisterous as Arnie’s only they swear all the time. They use those words I never heard until I was twenty. I said to Larry, “It shows a complete lack of proper education when people have to sprinkle swear words all the time in an ordinary conversation.” All Larry said was “Get a life, loser”, although he peppered it with a few of the words I was complaining about.

Anyway, both Arnie and Larry asked me how come I don’t get any visitors. “Don’t you have any family or friends?” they said. I said I didn’t have much; just a few nieces and nephews, and they said that explains it then. It explains why you complain about others having visitors when you don’t have any yourself. You’re jealous.

I said I wasn’t jealous and they said I was. Anyway, I texted a niece. She works as a fashion model for a big agency. She asked me what I wanted for my eighty-second birthday, so I told her what I wanted and she said she would arrange it.

So when my birthday came, about a week before I was due to leave the hospital, I had fifteen visitors all turn up at once; all from the model agency. And they all called me Uncle like I knew who the hell they were. The sexiest ones asked Arnie and Larry if they minded if they (the models) sat on the edge of the beds while they chatted to me. Arnie and Larry were beside themselves. The models left me a great big birthday cake which I shared with Arnie and Larry. Boy, did they shut up after that.