Nine holes later

I went back to the ER. After I calmed down from my visit to psycho doctor, I decided that maybe a slow and unpleasant death outweighed my person comfort with any one person. So after dinner with plenty of garlic bread to prepare for my second visit to the ER, I went back. I didn't see the doctor, praise Allah. She was too busy working on a bunch of people with more serious ailments than being gummed by a brown bat. After waiting for a couple hours (and watching some kid from Texas hammer a grand slam in the little league world series), a nurse took me into an examining room. "I'm really a nice person... usually," she said with a grin, "but I have to level with you: this is gonna kind of suck. I have to give you six injections. I'll be right back." The nurse left, then came back a minute later with — I kid you not — an armful of needles, syringes, vials and sharps containers. "Where did the bat bite you?" she asked, getting the ball rolling. I silently held out my index finger. "I have to inject as much of this first one into the site of the bite as I can," she explained. "It's probably going to hurt worse than the bite," she continued, sliding the needle under my skin, then moving the tip of it around while injecting goo into me. "Ahhh.." I whimpered. "Just a little more here," she said, followed with a cheerful "Poke!" to let me know what she was doing. "Now I need to see your cheeks, so drop your pants, please." I complied, turned around, and help onto the examining table for dear life. "Poke!" she said. "Poke! Poke! OK, now your thighs." I turned over. "Poke!Poke!Poke!Poke!" the nurse chirped away like a pot full of popcorn. "Just one more in your shoulder, then you're ready to go. Poke!" I thanked her with a smile for saving my life via torture, then did an ungainly stiff-legged hobble to the cair, sat gingerly down, and drove my sorry Poke!ed self home.