My dad is having surgery today. A very regular and non-invasive procedure I’ve been told. Instead of dwelling on the potential dangers of general surgery a la Grey’s Anatomy and the fragility of life, my mind keeps taking me back to the time when I picked up my friend A from his knee surgery. “I’d go home myself, but it is all part of the procedure. They won’t let me check out unless I have someone else to sign me out and take me home. It won’t take you more than half an hour” he said.

Being the good Samaritan that I am, I said “Fine. I’ll sneak out of work for half an hour to sign you out”. I ended up sneaking out for much longer than that. Good thing I didn’t really have any “real” work to do anyway. After waiting at the reception for over half an hour waiting for his name to show up on the screen ( like waiting for your number at the bank), we were finally allowed to see him. I expected him to be packed and ready to go. I did not expect to see him helplessly lying down, looking as pale and green as anyone I’ve ever seen. As soon as the nurse left, I started giggling and fishing for my phone to take a picture. He was literally green (like a pale green troll! Yes, I take joy in other people’s pain and laugh at inopportune times). I don’t remember if I actually took the picture or not (Did I snap the picture worth a million dollars or did I actually have a heart and respected his privacy? Note to self: go back and check photos on Nokia). But I definitely remember the childish burst of laughter as if it was yesterday. I can almost FEEL the moment just thinking about it.

The rest of the “pick-up” is more of a blur. We brought him home, we went to buy ice because A remembered to buy food but not ice, and over the weekend we brought him Japanese take out to relief him from the monotony of his microwaveable diet. This is almost completely irrelevant to my dad’s surgery. But maybe this feeling of comic relief is just what I need right now.