On dark jokes and gallows humor
Jan. 14th, 2003 09:50 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
bktheirregularIt occurs to me that over the years I have developed a sense of humor that might cut a little sharp at times. I try never to aim it at people, but my jokes can sometimes be a little strained, a little morbid.
Possible source: for more than ten years, I was a tech on a 911-response ambulance. Granted, it was in a small suburban town, so we were very unlikely to see casualties like they show on "ER", but still, just about every night, we were on the road.
Here's how it would go down:
Generally, the first part of the night, start of the shift at about 6 pm, the crew would congregate at the ambulance building, give the ambulances the once-over, make sure everything was stocked. Then we'd hang out a little while, jump in the rig if a call came in, and about four hours in, we'd go our separate ways, each of us carrying a pager/radio reciever.
That's usually when the fun began. Sometimes sitting down to dinner, sometimes settling in to watch a movie, sometimes with the crew chief making the moves on his girlfriend, more often at three o'clock in the frelling a.m., the pager goes off with a blast. One of the guys I work with said that the pagers - just about every volunteer unit I know uses one generation or another of the Motorola Minitor pager - well, the pagers are designed to emit a tone "specifically chosen to piss you off". Kinda like the loud tone the phone gives off when you leave it off the hook.
Anyway, the thing beeps loud enough to wake King Tut, you jump into your clothes, praying that what you've got sitting by the bed is warm enough for whatever the weather's turned into since you went to bed, you scrub the grit out of your eyeballs, jump in the car and head down to the squad building. Keeping in mind, of course, that there are people coming from three other directions who are as near to comatose as you are, and the rule of thumb is that you want the rig rolling in five minutes from the time the tone goes out.
Let's just say that things get a little bit strained in those circumstances. Plus which, if the call was to the local nursing home (whose name is a joke in itself, but one that really shouldn't be published), there's an even chance that you're being called for either:
a) A patient with a minor ailment that could have waited for the morning to go to the hospital in a private taxi ambulance, except that calling the cops for the 911 rig doesn't generate costs for anyone except the taxpayers footing gas and maintenance and supplies on the rigs, or:
b) A patient who was having some moderate-to-serious problems early in the evening, whom the doctors could have called the rig for about seven PM, but didn't want to bother, so now that they finally realized they should have called 911, the nurses are frantically trying to prop up a poor soul who by all rights should be deader than Cheops.
In between the strain, the fatigue, and the fury, the responses of choice are basically make really bad jokes or schedule a psychotic break.
Jokes like a patient coming down with a case of PBS. Pine Box Syndrome. Hey, I said the jokes were really bad, and we never said the jokes in front of the family, but we always knew there was going to be another 911 call coming in soon enough and we couldn't help the next person who needed it if we were suffering from emotional collapse.
I suppose it leads to excessive snarkiness.
And sometimes it spills over, even after I've finished with my ambulance days.
Hence the joke earlier today. Had to get it out of the way somehow.
And I was surprised that I was able to tap that thingy in on my cell phone... hm. Guess the Mojo client works...
Close entry.
Possible source: for more than ten years, I was a tech on a 911-response ambulance. Granted, it was in a small suburban town, so we were very unlikely to see casualties like they show on "ER", but still, just about every night, we were on the road.
Here's how it would go down:
Generally, the first part of the night, start of the shift at about 6 pm, the crew would congregate at the ambulance building, give the ambulances the once-over, make sure everything was stocked. Then we'd hang out a little while, jump in the rig if a call came in, and about four hours in, we'd go our separate ways, each of us carrying a pager/radio reciever.
That's usually when the fun began. Sometimes sitting down to dinner, sometimes settling in to watch a movie, sometimes with the crew chief making the moves on his girlfriend, more often at three o'clock in the frelling a.m., the pager goes off with a blast. One of the guys I work with said that the pagers - just about every volunteer unit I know uses one generation or another of the Motorola Minitor pager - well, the pagers are designed to emit a tone "specifically chosen to piss you off". Kinda like the loud tone the phone gives off when you leave it off the hook.
Anyway, the thing beeps loud enough to wake King Tut, you jump into your clothes, praying that what you've got sitting by the bed is warm enough for whatever the weather's turned into since you went to bed, you scrub the grit out of your eyeballs, jump in the car and head down to the squad building. Keeping in mind, of course, that there are people coming from three other directions who are as near to comatose as you are, and the rule of thumb is that you want the rig rolling in five minutes from the time the tone goes out.
Let's just say that things get a little bit strained in those circumstances. Plus which, if the call was to the local nursing home (whose name is a joke in itself, but one that really shouldn't be published), there's an even chance that you're being called for either:
a) A patient with a minor ailment that could have waited for the morning to go to the hospital in a private taxi ambulance, except that calling the cops for the 911 rig doesn't generate costs for anyone except the taxpayers footing gas and maintenance and supplies on the rigs, or:
b) A patient who was having some moderate-to-serious problems early in the evening, whom the doctors could have called the rig for about seven PM, but didn't want to bother, so now that they finally realized they should have called 911, the nurses are frantically trying to prop up a poor soul who by all rights should be deader than Cheops.
In between the strain, the fatigue, and the fury, the responses of choice are basically make really bad jokes or schedule a psychotic break.
Jokes like a patient coming down with a case of PBS. Pine Box Syndrome. Hey, I said the jokes were really bad, and we never said the jokes in front of the family, but we always knew there was going to be another 911 call coming in soon enough and we couldn't help the next person who needed it if we were suffering from emotional collapse.
I suppose it leads to excessive snarkiness.
And sometimes it spills over, even after I've finished with my ambulance days.
Hence the joke earlier today. Had to get it out of the way somehow.
And I was surprised that I was able to tap that thingy in on my cell phone... hm. Guess the Mojo client works...
Close entry.
