PALO ALTO, CA – Scrubs are fairly shapeless. If you can discern shapes, the wearer is likely pregnant or wearing the wrong size. The ultimate in utility wear, hospital scrubs never make it to the red carpet or the runway, although Dr. Oz manages to look fairly comfortable in them. At Blonde Memorial Hospital low morale among staff and surgeons was initially attributed to the usual reasons: irascible coworkers, senseless Joint Commission policies, and patients who’d graduated from patient doctor school. Now it is being linked to scrubs.
“I have a small top and a large bottom,” admitted a surgical technologist who wishes to remain anonymous. “No one knew about it when I wore baggy scrubs from home, but now that Obamacare requires us to wear sterile hospital scrubs that must be changed on the hour, everyone knows! Even worse, completing a successful transaction with the scrub machine is much harder than obtaining medical marijuana or meth from my dealer doctor.”
In order of sizes, the borders and drawstrings on the offending scrubs range from yellow to khaki to white to blue. Some staff have been seen stitching their own colors on the scrubs in the locker room.
At first, administrators thought the scrub-inflicted low self esteem would save the hospital money. Larger sizes cost several cents more and no one wanted to wear the blue aka jaundiced cyanosis (XXXL) or even [yellow] severe plaque psoriasis (XXL) if they could help it. Many employees started working out, substituting En Fuego Chinese Taco Bombs for Lard Moo Shakes, guzzling Mag Citrate, and pilfering soap suds enemas and syrup of ipecac for personal use. All in the name of weight loss.
It’s now been three months since the launch of color-coded scrubs at Blonde Memorial.
There are plenty of size small scrubs to go around, but size large and above are currently in short supply as if they were being hoarded by a select few. Bloated nurses are rolling from patient to patient in their office chairs, and sweaty first assistants are begging anesthesia to turn the room temperature down by just one more degree as their sausage-sized fingers finish stapling surgical wounds.
It turns out that these employees can work without breaks for an entire shift, sign up for a marathon monthly, and say “I ate before I came” several times a week, but at the end of the day, the best way to de-stress from body image issues and a horrible work environment is with a quart of ice cream, several slices of chocolate cake, and perhaps a pizza or two.
