Pass the smelling salts, please

I nearly fainted this morning. And this doesn't have to do with my conviction, nurtured over the last 2 weeks, that I have a mild case of strep throat. Turns out that you can't really have mild strep throat. The doctor, helpful chap that he was, diagnosed my condition as a likely mouth-breather. This does not exactly correspond to my own privately-held self image, and unfortunately there isn't a lot that antibiotics can do for this condition.

I've only seen two people faint in my life. One of them, on a swelterig day at the Acropolis (not the greek restaurant on Halsted street, but the real thing over there in Greece). I was with some friends, and all of us had recently completed an EMT course over the course of the last semester at college. The poor woman didn't know what hit her--three recently graduated EMTs anxious to diagnosis a bad case of heat exhaustion suddenly descended upon her to ply her with cold compresses and elevate her feet. You'll be glad to know she survived, despite our attentions. And then last year, when an old couple drove their beat up Chevy sedan into the front of our house, I naturally called the cops. At the sound of the sirens, the woman emerged from the car demanding to know who had called the cops. I bravely step forward: well, I did. She turns to me, shaking her fist, yelling "I don't want the cops, I told you I don't need an ambul...." and she faints. The conclusion drawn by the majority of the hundred or so people who had gathered at the scene was that yes, she did in fact need an ambulance.

This morning, however, my knees grew weak--I seriously had to stop and clutch the handrail as the room started to swirl just a teeny bit-- as I mounted the stairs to ask my supervisor to consider making my position part-time. I'm burnt out. I don't love my job. But I might be able to love it part-time. My sales pitch was better than this, and I think I managed to keep the quiver mostly out of my voice. He's going to get back to me. So we'll just have to see. In the meantime, however, I'm feeling much better, thank you.