Dr. Flick

I once dated this girl who was a nursing student. She was mostly a pain in the ass, but she was really good at the sex thing, so of course I was smitten.

On one Thrusday evening I had designs on taking her out, getting her drunk, then doing my best to talk her into coming back to my place. It was really quite the plan. The only catch was that she had a project to do at the computer lab with the other students in her class, but that I could roll over around 9 pm and pick her up there.

At nine I strolled into the computer lab to find a gaggle of frantic nurses-to-be. They had been working on the project for hours and apparently it hadn't gone well. Worse yet, it also became apparent that whatever issues they were having were putting my chances of getting laid in jeopardy.

The project they were working on was a computer simulation that required them to move a sick patient from 11,000 feet in elevation to 3,000 feet without killing the poor guy. To this point, they had been unsuccessful. Desperate to help my own situation I asked if I could give it a try.

The way it worked was that you'd stabilize the patient then click a button that would move him down 1,000 feet. The computer would then indicate if the patient was alive, dead, or somewhere in between.

Seeing as I didn't really know what I was doing, I just started fill the dude up with everything in the medical kit. Vasodialators, vasosuppressors, morphine, whatever...the bastard was getting down the mountain and I was going to be sitting in a bar with a cold beer and then figuring out how to undo a front clasp bra, one way or another.

So I clicked the button...

11,000 feet...no problem.

10,000 feet things started to go screwy....I jacked him up again... clapideral, nitrogylcerine, some more morphine, a shot of wild turkey, whatever..

CLICK for 9,000 feet....alive !!!! Majorly fucked up...but alive.

And so it continued 8,000.....7,000....6,000 each step of the way and with each click the computer would respond that the patient was hanging on by a thread....

At 4,000 feet I had to use the paddles on him.

You could cut the tention with a knife and beads of sweat formed on my forehead....I GOT A HEATBEAT BACK...more drugs...something...anything...I was shaking...so close, yet so far away, but I pressed on powered by the cheers of the small crowd that had formed behind me and by the thought that I was surely due a blowjob if I could just pull this last bit off.

I reached out a nervous finger and clicked enter.

3,000 feet.....ALIVE !!!!!! The room went crazy with cheering nurses-to-be, there were hugs all around, and a got a kiss that, if indicative of things to come, promised a very bountenous evening ahead.

In the middle of the furvor , one mousey looking girl walked over and tore off the print-out of the entire exercise that they were to turn in to the professor. As she riffled through the pages of dot-matrix laden sheets her eyes got big and she started for clamor for everyone's attention.

"Wait, wait, wait, hang on.", she tried to speak over the din.

She looked like a little kid who came down the stairs at Christmas morning and suddenly realized that his family being Jewish meant that there'd be no presents. She turned her gaze directly at me, " When you started at 13,000 feet..what was the first thing you did ?"

" I dunno, I think i gave him some oxygen and a shot or something..you're the one with the shee.."

" NO !", she cut me off abruptly and the room when silent, " I don't mean what's the first treatment you game him. I mean what was the first thing that you did when you sat down at the computer ?"

" Ahhh, I dunno..whatever..I think I hit go."

A collective groan coincided with everyone stealing paniced glances at each other and then they all began dejectedly looking at the floor...on the far side of the room one girl started to cry. After a moment everyone started walking back to their computers.

" Wha ?", I was stunned. I looked to my girl, " Wha ?". It was all I could muster.

She had an expression that I'm not sure that I had every seen before or since. It was equal parts sadness, distain and embarassment, but with just a tad bit of sympathy. I also got the sense that the sympathy was the only thing holding her back from driving staples into my head.

" You see, " she spoke with great effort, " the first thing that you were supposed to do was make the patient sick."

" He wasn't sick to begin with?"

" No, you have to assign him an illness. He was heathy at the top. "

" Well then...how did he almost....but I had to.... the paddles", I was starting to catch up now, " Oh......OH !"

"yeah," at this point she wasn't even making eye contact anymore.

" So I guess this means-"

"-yeah."

" Um, oh ok. I guess I'll...well...you know", and I shuffled out the door. I'd have happily traded places with the sick guy...paddles and all.