There is an oft-cited expression in the entertainment industry that says, “Timing is Everything.” It is also used in everyday life to evoke the image that the outcome of events is sometimes adversely altered by doing something at the wrong time. 

I recently thought of the expression when a friend of mine was not feeling well. For a few hours he was having some pain in his stomach. He ignored it for a while, but the discomfort got worse. He decided to go to the hospital to be checked out and asked if I would drive him. Of course, I said yes.

Arriving at his house, I helped him get into my car. Before I started the car, I asked him if he packed essentials. I guess all those merit badges he earned as a Boy Scout were worth it. He certainly lived up to the scout motto “Be Prepared.” In the cloth bag was a cell phone, the charger, a printed list of his daily medications and the phone numbers of his primary care doctor.

At the hospital, I was stunned at the number of cars that were crammed into the parking lot. Near the side entrance of the emergency room, ambulances were lined up waiting to wheel their patients to the entrance reserved for them. Ambulances get priority access to the triage desk.

I assisted my friend inside. There must have been a hundred people crammed into that room. If there had been an overhead camera, the picture would have resembled that famous scene from: “Gone With The Wind” where hundreds of wounded Confederate soldiers filled the exterior of the train depot in Atlanta.

Noticing that the far side of the room seemed to have a clear plastic enclosed check-in desk, I told my friend that I would go and check him in.

The closer I got to the check in area the more I realized that we were in for a long haul. I overheard people saying that they have been waiting to be taken to an emergency room for hours. I felt sorry for the intake personnel that took the heated anger from the masses before them.

I heard snippets of exclamations for the delay such as…truck hit a bus, short-staffed because of the holiday weekend…our computers are acting up. I knew my ailing friend and I were living a nightmare. Eventually I was given a piece of paper with the number 83 stamped on it.

I hunkered down next to my friend and told him that we were in for a long wait. Over the intercom I heard “Now servicing number 16.”

I decided to be bold and gathered up my friend and headed outside. I told him to trust me. I drove fifteen minutes away to a building where most of the hospital’s doctors had offices. In the nearly empty parking lot, I called for an ambulance explaining that my friend was very ill. 

The ambulance arrived in 10 minutes and loaded my friend on a gurney. I followed them to the hospital. They wheeled him in directly to the triage nurse to assess his medical needs. 

In the small examination room, the doctor asked him a series of questions. Where was the pain and how severe was it? As the doctor put on rubber gloves my friend told him the pain started about an hour after he had three slices of pizza with extra cheese for lunch. 

As the doctor proceeded to press around my friend’s stomach, I said “Pizza? You can’t eat pizza, aren’t you lactose intolerant?” Hearing my comment, the doctor grabbed my friend’s legs and slowly lifted them, so his knees were over his stomach. 

What followed was a long and extended blast of flatulence that could have been recorded on the Richter Scale. The doctor removed his gloves, smiled, and said, “a nurse will be in shortly with discharge papers for that discharge.” 

It was a quick fix, diminishing the guilt I felt for essentially cutting the line. In the parking lot, I handed a man with his arm in a makeshift sling, the slip with check in number 83. As he read it, I said “Timing is everything.”

Hudson Cooper is a resident of Sullivan County, a writer, comedian and actor.