White Christmas 2006: VI

Juan Valdez Meets Thomas Edison
Something was amiss the morning of the annual pediatrician’s visit. As usual it was chaotic trying to get the girls to use the bathroom and then out the door. The combination of two cups of coffee and the unusually heavy traffic was a constant reminder that Kristin had forgotten to visit the bathroom herself. “Bladder Panic” didn’t set in until she inched through the second stop light noticing the massive power outage – the second stoplight of almost 10 between home and the doctor’s office. Pulling into the parking lot after a torturously long drive, she noticed with mild curiosity, the pediatrician standing outside of the office building. Apparently, the power outage had chased the doctor, staff and patients from the office. Undaunted and nearly desperate, Kristin headed toward the first floor bathroom. A few steps inside the building, she met the nurse who was delivering supplies to the doctor outside. Knowing the bathroom would be pitch-black, the nurse offered Kristin the pediatric flashlight she had just retrieved (the heavy cylindrical metal type that produces a very focused beam for examining ears and throats). She charged into the bathroom shining the beam ahead of her into an eerie darkness. Almost as soon as she closed the stall door (as if privacy would be a concern), the beam began to become more and more focused until it was just a single point of light. And then it winked out, plunging Kristin into a darkness so complete that it would have been hard to deliberately reproduce. With hands she couldn’t see extended in front of her, Kristin attempted to find the bathroom door. When the nurse, who had come to retrieve the flashlight for a waiting doctor, finally opened the door, Kristin saw that she was actually stumbling around the far side of the bathroom – nowhere near the door. She returned the flashlight but on the way back to the car overheard the nurse explaining to the doctor: “That’s funny. It worked when I tried it upstairs.”