RBT: Chapped lips?! Seriously, there is no triage code for that.

Now, one of my other best friends from residency, Cindy, heard about these occasional little gems I get, her response being, “I want some RBTs!”

She has totally gotten in on the game now, too. I suppose now I get RCTs, too. (That’s Random Cindy Texts, in case you weren’t following along.). Cindy is another no-nonsense gal, a Texan, and a mother of two. When she was 8 months pregnant with her son, she once told a patient, “Suck it up, Buttercup!”

While in college, she worked for a little while as a bartender.

Recently I was on a night shift when a picture popped up on my phone. I took a double take to find that Cindy had sent me a picture of a machete. (Yes, folks, a true-to-life, Romancing-the-Stone machete.) It’s Texas, I guess.

RCT: I just pulled this off a patient.

Apparently, their security guys didn’t do that great of a search. How did that get though the metal detector?

RCT: I just diagnosed miliary TB.

OK, that’s just awesome. Not usually on my differential.

RCT: Chief complaint: Assault. Hit in face with a chicken nugget.

Well, we’ve regressed from machetes to chicken nuggets as weapons. What kind of a society are we? It’s a good thing it wasn’t the sharp end of a crunchy fry.

For my part, I try to share all the interesting names I see. Recently, I had a Princezarriyon. Betsy said she was sure he’d be a future college professor.

I’m sure you all have seen the same weird stupidity day in and day out. But there’s something about seeing it coming across your phone out of nowhere that makes it that much more funny and enjoyable – oh, and tolerable.

I’m always looking forward to my next text, wondering what nonsense is going on in the world. It makes me feel not so alone in the night, knowing that someone else out there is sitting in the same seat, surveying the crowd, trying to sift out who is sick and who is not so sick.

Some nights, it seems like everyone is sick. Other nights, it seems like only people who are sick in the head would call the ambulance because a cough drop made their throat numb, and they thought they were having a stroke (true story). I mean, it’s a miracle these people survive childhood. Three million years ago, some prehistoric cat would have eaten them by now.