Image courtesy of Circe Denyer and publicdomainpictures.net
Carla is in the breakroom at St. Joe’s cafeteria chewing a bite of an egg salad sandwich she has in one hand. With her other hand, she writes a report on Mel, Mr. Henderson’s friend. He brought him in just after midnight fearing, the worst. It turns out Mr. Henderson was right. Mel took a heavy pain medication with alcohol and reacted badly to the two things mixing.
Jessica figured it out when she found a bottle of hydrocodone prescribed by a local dentist in Mel’s coat. When Carla heard this, she was surprised any doctor would give a drunk like Mel heavy pain medication. Then Jessica said it did not belong to Mel but rather his wife before Carla opened his mouth and held his head back so Jessica could put a tube down Mel’s throat. Once complete, Mel had his stomach pumped.
Now he rests on a gurney with his wife, Rachel, at his side whose in tears. She mistakenly thought it was okay to let Mel take some of the pain medication she had leftover from dental surgery so the intense pain he experienced from having three teeth pulled would go down. However, despite her making him promise not to take a pill using alcohol, he would do that anyway. And between sobs, Rachel told her and Jessica that Mel would be in for one tough conversation. She has to find out if he will try to give up alcohol and get sober, or an event like this could happen again, and Mel could lose his life.
Both Jessica and Carla are not so sure Rachel can pull this off. They feel this because of their history treating Mel, but neither chose to dissuade her from trying.
Just as Carla signs her name and puts down the date on the finished report, she hears a clattering of metal pans and cursing. At first, she thinks someone in the cafeteria kitchen dropped them until she hears another person shout, “You idiot, how did you not see me with this pan spaghetti and meat sauce? Your glasses lenses are large enough you couldn’t have missed it!”
“I am not blind, and I am no idiot! I was working on fixing the damn dishwasher, so don’t you go blaming me for your mishap.
“I spoke to you. idiot!”
“There you go again, well bud, let’s wipe that hate right off your face!”
Uh oh, thinks Carla, and she rushes from her table believing a fistfight is about to start, and the blood will fly.
