War Of The Strawberries

The food we serve to the patients is crap with one noteworthy exception; the strawberries are magnificent. They are big as apricots and incredibly sweet. We would just buy them if we could, but strawberries like these are unavailable at the local stores. The way we get them is to pick them off of patient's dirty food trays. Yes, they are good enough to risk eating off of a sick person's dirty tray.

Last night, there was an ugly confrontation over the strawberries. If you've ever seen two dogs fighting over food, you have some idea what this was like.

A large plate of strawberries arrived on the dumbwaiter with no label. One of our patients had ordered some extra strawberries, so our secretary figured that these must be for her. But, there were too many for just one person, so she started eating the extras. One of the nurses in our sister unit saw this and started yelling. She said that the strawberries were for one of their patients and she grabbed the plate away.

The secretary watched sullenly as the plate was taken into their kitchen. Hey, wait a minute she thought. If they were for a patient why were they taken into the kitchen? She waited a couple of minutes and the strawberries never left the kitchen.

She walked over to the kitchen, opened the door and found several nurses eating the strawberries. We figure that they must have a friend in the kitchen who sent them and they were upset because our secretary stole some of their stolen strawberries.

An ugly fight ensued with both sides threatening to write each other up. The fight ended with our secretary yelling, "Liar, liar, strawberries on fire." I have no idea what that meant and I guess no one else did either. Silence followed. There is nothing like a silly statement to end an argument.