Dear Transient Lady…

… I appreciate the fact that you are tired and footsore. If what you’ve told me is true, you’ve been walking for a hundred miles, and you’ve forty more to go. You also tell me you are having breathing difficulty.

Yet, your unlabored breathing, clear lung sounds and 100% oxygen saturation belie that complaint. I am also aware that the onset of your symptoms roughly coincides with the start of the thunderstorm that just passed through this area. Proof of that is evident in your soaked clothing, although the rain was not powerful enough to wash away the acrid reek of crack cocaine.

So when you tell me that the major hospital five minutes away is not suitable, and that you’d rather go to the smaller hospital forty miles further east – which just happens to be just a few miles from your destination…

… let’s not pretend that you called me for medical care, mmmkay?

Do I look like I just fell off the turnip truck?

On second thought, don’t answer that.