by Kevin Duffield

Created on: July 27, 2009   Last Updated: July 31, 2009

The Very Bad Day of Milton Carter

Milton Carter was an atheist in the manner that he only believed in God when he needed some higher power to blame for any misfortune in his life. As things were going lately, the Almighty was getting the tongue-lashing of the Millennium today.

It was God's fault Milton had woke up late for work this morning. It was God's fault his wife could not cook and tried to pass off malformed lumps of granite as fried eggs for breakfast. It was also God who was to blame for the next-door neighbor's dog, who had decided to relieve himself on Milton's front step. This was particularly bad, as this was the primary reason he was looking at a sterile hospital room instead of a sterile office cubicle. Slipping in dog shit and falling down a short flight of concrete steps was not the healthiest of experiences. Milton could still feel the throb in his temple where his head had impacted with stone.

While he was at it, he cursed God for making stone, too.

His arm had been broken in the fall. Doctor Chapman called it a nice and neat greenstick fracture. How anything so painful could be called neat was beyond him. The cast encircling his arm itched in near epic proportions. Of course, this was God's fault as well. Add to all of this the fact the man in the bed next to him did nothing all day but describe, in horrid detail, the workings and reason behind his newly installed colostomy bag, it was the worst day of his life. And whose fault was that?

His wife had almost, but not quite, been the worst of it. After his fall, she spent nearly five whole minutes asking him if he was all right. As if the flow of blood from his forehead and the glassy look in his eyes weren't an indication. Milton was nearly to the point of blacking out before she finally ran back into the house. At last! She would be calling for an ambulance! Comforted by the thought, Milton had let himself drift away into sweet, painless oblivion.

His wife, Caroline, was somewhat of a home remedy fanatic and fancied herself to be a modern-day Doctor Quinn. One entire wall of their living room held shelf upon shelf of books dealing with self-help, herbal remedies, and medical encyclopedias, all hopelessly out of date. She had read almost all of them, cover to cover, and as a result now felt she could cure everything from a paper-cut to another outbreak of the Black Plague. Milton didn't trust her to put a Band Aid on properly.

So, as Milton lay on the front walk, dazed and blissfully

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