scrotum poles at happy hour

every saturday afternoon we show old movies and tv serials to the patients and on the last friday of each month we have happy hour. this is the day we roll out the aged madeira and vintage port so all the staff line up for free meds and wash them down with Terrantez. Ten minutes later, when the buzz comes on, we bring up the cask red and a dozen tooheys and whisk the tea trolley round the lounge.

there’s maybe 50 or 60 inmates congregated together clutching their sweaty $2.00 coins, waiting for the genteel afternoon tea to finish. nursemyra likes to prolong the tension, 5mg of  oxycontin washed down with a single quintas brings out the mildred ratched in me. by the time I’ve dropped platters of cheese cubes and cocktail onions on each table they’re all champing at the bit.

the thing about happy hour is that it tends to get the hormones happening. we’ve got our eye on Madame Crazy and also on Dr. Do-Able but there’s often a few dark horses running in this race. New kid on the block is The Actor. He arrived on monday and confused everyone by appearing way too normal to be an inmate. he was mistaken for the furniture removalist, the chaplain and the geriatrician and it wasn’t until he was found blessing stethoscopes in the carpark that anyone realised otherwise.

The Actor used to star in a famous 70s aussie soap, the one that first dared to show nudity, adultery, rape, drug taking and homosexuality. characters became pregnant to priests, were sent to mental hospitals, lost limbs and married their nurses. all rather like real life though I doubt The Actor envisaged ending his days at the Gimcrack when he signed up to dispense drugs at number 96.

over the course of the next hour, the coolabah and the tooheys start to take effect. Madame Crazy’s practically under the table and definitely out of the running. Dr. Do-Able looks too pleasantly buzzed to be capable of any shenanigans so the fan club’s attention is definitely on the Actor.

did I mention that BabyJane is back from hospital? she made a full recovery if you ignore her tendency to throw the odd mini stroke every couple of days. she and the new kid have exchanged glances but they’re at opposite sides of the room and there’s an obstacle course of walking frames to be traversed before any bodily fluids can be exchanged.

it’s up to The Actor to make his move and at 10 to 5 he decides it’s time. he lurches out of the chair and takes a step in BabyJane’s direction. her eyelashes flutter expectantly as she smoothes the creases out of her capri pants, the bulge of her continence pad barely noticeable.

he’s crossed the room and almost reached his goal when Dr. Do-Able slides a walking stick between The Actor’s ankles. he’s down for the count and it doesn’t look good. one leg is at an odd angle and is no longer the same length as the other one. nursemyra casts a practised eye over the carnage and diagnoses a fractured neck of femur. I send the junior off to call an ambulance and make The Actor comfortable with a few pillows

the dinner bell is ringing and the casks are empty. patients start filing down to the lift, BabyJane and Dr. Do-Able are among the last to leave. he offers her an arm but she’s having none of it. the siren wails its way toward us and I’m not sure if it’s the spinning red lights or the sight of her admirer on the floor but BabyJane throws a petit mal as the ambo comes through the door.

so they call for backup and the star crossed lovers are whisked off to the E.D. together. nursemyra turns out the lights and wheels the tea trolley down the corridor.

that’s happy hour at the gimcrack. can’t wait for the next one but in between now and then we’ve got four weeks to show movies and I think we’ll be screening back to back episodes of No. 96…..