Days off

During my days off I did an afternoon shift for some overtime. Hey, think of the money. This shift starts at midday and goes until 10.30 at night. We got off to a reasonable start and I even managed to get my coffee finished and read the Odd Spot in the paper before the first call. Not bad. By the time we actually finished around midnight and locked the keys in the safe I was thrashed.

We'd been to a beautiful nanna who'd broken her hip while cooking and had been on the floor for hours until the neighbours heard her calling for help, we saw a bloke who wanted us to help him "pick up me 'done" (methadone) cause he was having abdominal pain and said he couldn't drive down to get it himself, we'd been to a young mum and dad who's little boy had scared the crap out of them with his first febrile convulsion, and around 9 at night we'd seen a bloke who'd jumped off a 5th story roof - tragically for him there was nothing to be done. I was left wondering what could possibly have been that bad in his life. Mostly I was puzzled by the cab driver who bystanders said drove away at a rate of knots when the young man landed on the footpath nearby. I guess he didn't want to be delayed by any questions from the police. Bizarre, when a young life has just been extinguished right there.

We finally made it back to branch without getting anymore calls and I walked home - wasn't this meant to be a day off? That'll teach me to do overtime.