When I first came to live in the "country" I was working as a nurse and got a part time job at a very large, old, hospital, that had been built in the early dinosauric period! It had these tunnels underneath it, that connected all the old buildings together, and also housed the cafeteria, and other things that weren't allowed to function above ground!
The first thing you do when you start a position anywhere is orientation, and I was in the process of this orientation when I came to be working a night shift with one other nurse. Things had been going fairly well that evening, when my nurse counterpart asked me to go down to the cafeteria and bring up some jugs of milk, while she poured the evening meds.
(This sounds so mundane that you're probably about to sign off...but hang in there....you will be rewarded.....)
I was a bit nervous about finding my way there and back, but with some encouragement I set off on my adventure. Through the winding tunnels I went, with the wheels of my little beverage cart rattling loudly and echoing into all the darkest places. It seemed to take years to find the darn cafeteria, but once found, all my anxiety ebbed away, and I felt the thrill of accomplishment...it had not been so bad after all!
There before me stood two huge stainless steel vats of milk (as had been described). So I lifted the valve on the first vat, and out came a cup of milk, followed by 5 or 6 small droplets....a little stream...and then ...nothing. I then move to the second vat of shiny stainless steel, and closely examined it. I lifted the valve, but nothing came out, although I could see the milk teasing me through the clear tube that hung below the valve. Hmmm....what could be different? I was not going back empty handed, only to be sent into "the trenches" again.
After close inspection it seemed that the only difference between vat empty and vat full, was that the transparent tube in vat full has not yet been cut open!...( I am observant if nothing else!!) Anyhoo....I quickly located a large sharp pair of scissors and severed the end of the tube identically to the twin vat tube...and just as I had anticipated the milk began to flow...and flow...and flow!!!I had NOT anticipated this! I had already filled 3 jugs full of milk, and was reaching for other vessels to fill, but they were getting further away from my grasp...you've heard of the land flowing with milk and honey!?...well I was there...minus the honey!Tears rolled down my face and joined with the rivulets of milk that rolled down my neck.
Desperation set in, and I started to shout "help"..."help"...but as I was in fact in a basement room, at the very end of a long tunnel...the result was as expected, there was no help, and I thanked God that it was only milk that I was fighting.
Then it came to me...I must tie the tube off ( had that realization occurred just a few moments prior, I might have cut it differently)...the tying began. If you have ever attempted to tie a hose while it is running then you can begin to imagine the next few minutes of my life. There was milk squirting everywhere...on the ceiling...on the floor...on my face...on my body....I mean EVERYWHERE...at one point I had decided that I would abandon the whole thing and flee, claiming to have no knowledge of the melee that had occurred in the kitchen. But alas I could not do that. Instead I staved the flow of milk, and returned to my unit, much to the surprise of my counterpart nurse, who, as I stepped off the elevator completely SATURATED and dripping milk, asked....."what took you so l..."!!And there the story begins again!
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