In light of my upcoming trip to China, the floor at the hospital where I work at decided to throw another "Neville Day." That is the name that someone came up with months ago and it just so happen to stick. So, for the past week everyone has been asking when "Neville Day" is. It's pretty ridiculous, yes, but it's good to see so many employees get so excited over a potcluck party that makes it okay to eat three kinds of chocolate cake in one setting. Carol, one of those huggable nurses that just can't figure out when to quit beating a dead horse, was frolicking up and down the halls all morning awaiting the noon-time splurge fest of chocolate, chocolate syrup, chip dip, hot dogs, and diet pepsi.

"Are you ready honey?" She asks me whenever she passes me in the hall. Her face can barely bottle up all the joy.

"I'm gettin' there!" I'd say.

Once the "Neville Day" potluck party began, Carol was nearly bouncing of the walls as others decided to throw some hot dogs on the George Foreman grill. At the sight of this, Carol exclaimed "Make sure you brown them really good! I like my weiners brown!" and then laughed uncontrollably, as if she was in third grade and had just told the naughtiest joke to her best girlfriend. And then, she danced the waltz out of the break room to get some more ice for the diet pop. Everyone else just kept asking if she was drunk.

Once the party was well underway, Carol admitted to sucking down three cups of coffee a couple of hours before noon. This, a co-worker named Flo informed me, is "all she needs to get going. Once she's gone there ain't no stopping her no more." And this is part of why I love working at the hospital. People eat a little too much sugar, perform a little too many blood withdrawls, and start one too many IV pumps before going sailing into a mental state of euphoric oblivion. And of course, everyone merely shrugs and accepts this as normal behavior. After all, if there's one thing you learn after working at a hospital it's this: vocational norms and public displays of indecency don't exist.