Funny Food and Friends

My hopsital roommate Yossi treated everything with a pinch of salt. We talked and laughed together for three days straight, our rancour aimed at anyone and everyone. Doctors, nurses and support staff all loved coming in to visit, because they would leave our room with a smile.

At the handover of nursing shifts, a gaggle of incoming nurses were bought to our door as a homebound nurse described our cases. "This is the room with the 2 clowns" would invariably be the description we merited. And then I would add, " ! אני המדליק והוא המודלק" (sorry English readers, I can't translate that without losing too much meaning). At one point we even considered trying to get hold of two red, plastic clown noses for us both to slip on whenever a nurse entered the room.

Yossi was not allowed solid food and every day was brought jelly. He hated jelly. Each day we would try to guess what colour jelly he would would be brought, despite the staff being specifically asked to bring something else.

"This is no good, I can't eat it!" he would tell them. "Please, bring something else".

We were discussing our plans to stick a sign on our door saying 'Entry to Jelly Forbidden' when a new staff member wandered in. "I heard you can't eat the food we brought. No problem, I have brought you a bowl of jelly instead…"

Jelly, of course became a sore point and a focus for jest.

One day I complained. "He always gets jelly even though he can’t stand it. I never get jelly. Give me his!" The sherut leumi girl giggled at the game and brought his meal to me. I took one bite and spat it out. The sugary crystals had clumped together and it was totally inedible. Yossi and I looked at each other and burst out laughing for the fifteenth time that day.

"Oh my God" I proffered, "if one can’t even eat the jelly here then we really are in trouble!".