Evenings is Magic

Okay, enough of the gloom and doom and hatefulness that is my life the last month.

Evening shift sayings of the OR.

Oh, yes, this is a thing.

Did you know it is possible to add words to the common vernacular in an enclosed space?

Oh, yes, this is possible.

The first one I coined was after I noticed a uni knee tray in the basement on a table. I had just come on shift and I was pulling cases for the next day. I finished pulling all fifteen of the cases and went upstairs to find something else to do, because evening work is never done. And the manager, assistant manager, sterile processing manager, and day shift charge nurse were all in a tizzy. Multiple trays were open, the rep was pacing around, the assistant manager was on the phone. I casually asked what was up, as you do, feeling my way gently through the emotional crowd.

Elle, the assistant manager, snapped, “We’ve lost a tray, can’t find it, not in SPD, not on the shelf, it’s nowhere and it was will thousands of dollars to replace it.”

Me, wondering if it was the tray I’d seen plain as day on a table in the basement, “Which tray?”

Elle, “A medium uni tray.” She then went back to her conversation.

Me, nonchalantly taking the elevator downstairs and retrieving the tray from the table they would’ve had to pass umpteen times in the day during their franticness and hysteria. I brought it upstairs, handed it to Elle, and asked, “this one?”

You would’ve thought I had paraded naked in the core.

Elle grabbed it, “Yes!!! Where did you find it?”

Me, “On a table in the case makeup section, near the SPD door.”

Elle, clutching the tray to her bosom like a tragic heroine, “How did you find it?”

Me, shrugging, resisting telling them that they could have found it at any time, “Evenings is Magic.”

And, like that, the phrase was born.