locks

There are too many keys at my second job. They lie heavily against my chest at the end of my id lanyard or stretch the pockets of my maude like sweaters. They open storage closets and cages throughout the hospital, places that still have locks instead of the mysterious key coded plates that open at a magical tap of my hospital id card. There are large keys and small file cabinet keys and classroom keys. One key opens a storage area where my resuscitation manikins reside when not in use--creepy families of limbless infants, children and adults, with thin lips and replaceable lungs and torsos I clean with Goo Gone where thousands of hands have inexpertly practiced CPR, knowing that they are pressing hard enough when they hear the "click" of the plastic compression unit designed for the purpose. Sometimes I change their faces by rolling the rubber down from the forehead and across the jaw until they pop off. I have to wrap them up to put them into the trash so the cleaning crew doesn't freak out.

It takes special people to work in an environment with so many keys, so many rules, such bureaucracy and with such a noble purpose--to serve the children. 11,000 people with great key fobs of their own shuffle to this place each day and night, to see what they see, to do what they do. Other than a commitment to excellence and the necessity of working in a non-profit environment, I don't know that I am one of them. There are, of course, snobby doctors, emotionally unstable nurses, paper pushing goofballs, layers of politics, butt kissing, and 2 1/2 hour commutes when the Red Sox play. And there are wonderful, terrified parents, amazingly resilient children, brilliant bio technicians, smiling custodians and nurses who can predict the sex of an unborn baby and who daily hold children and parents to their bosoms offering wordless comfort.

Just might be too many keys for my weary neck to bear.