The Day I Asked a Basic Question and the Universe Roasted Me
A triage scenario that aged me 12 years.
I love teaching. I really do. But every so often, a student reminds me that my lifespan is finite and my patience even more so.
About ten years ago, a girl from my church reached out because she wanted to “learn critical thinking.”
Beautiful. Noble. A worthy pursuit.
I should’ve known this was foreshadowing.
She was a third-year nursing student, so I used healthcare scenarios—real-world, practical, life-or-death stuff.
Again: FORESHADOWING.
One day, I gave her this scenario:
“You’re a licensed nurse working in the ER. This is about triage,” I added, thinking context would help. It did not.
The setup:
“Patient A has been sitting for six hours with constipation. They’re three feet away from where you are standing. Patient B runs in with blood pouring down their neck—obvious gunshot wound. They’re eight feet away from you.”
At this point, any reasonable person—anyone with a pulse, even—would know the answer.
“So,” I asked, “which patient do you attend to first?”
She paused.
She pondered.
She stared into the abyss and let the abyss stare back.
Then she smiled and said:
“The one who’s closer to me.”
I made a face normally reserved for seeing raw chicken in the sink that no one admits leaving there.
“Let me make sure I heard you,” I said, using the calm tone of someone detaching from their own soul.
“You would treat the constipated patient before the gunshot victim?”
She nodded. Cheerfully. With conviction.
“…Why?”
She sighed dramatically.
Like I was the one embarrassing myself here.
“Because that patient is closer to me.”
I laughed.
I cried.
I reconsidered everything from my pedagogy to the Big Bang.
That’s the moment I accepted a profound truth:
I cannot fix stupid.
Not with teaching.
Not with patience.
Not with divine intervention.
Some people don’t need lessons.
They need a supervisor.
Well, maybe she should not work in emergency health 💩