This, my friends, is a deep fried chicken breast. With hot sauce. And a Pepsi. This is my reward for allowing Wednesday to continue to even be on my calendar. Occasionally, it is served with fried okra, and then it is even better. Why is Wednesday so bad it needs a special treat just to be tolerated? Let me ‘splain, Lucy.

On Wednesdays, I don’t go to my regular internship. On Wednesdays, I go to my alternate rotation, which is at an out patient clinic. I make phone calls to veterans I have never seen in order to follow up on messages that they have left on my task manager’s phone about issues they are having. These issues vary widely: housing, health, meals, transportation, mobility (which is actually a combination of health and transportation, but isn’t actually either one). Sometimes, we can help using established VA programs. Often, there is nothing the VA can do about what they need, and if that is the case, I am tasked with identifying community resources for which they may qualify. Now, I am a good googler, and an outside the box thinker, so this job is getting easier. But. It’s phone work. With people I don’t know. And I dislike the phone. People are so hard to understand when I can’t see their lips and read their facial expressions. It’s harder to get a read on what the issue behind the issue is. Or even if there is an issue behind the issue. Sometimes there isn’t, and the case is as it presents. But there is no way to look someone in the eye over the phone and know that I have heard what they are actually telling me. There is no way for them to look me in the eye and know I’m not hearing what they are meaning/needing to say.

Here’s the other thing about Wednesdays. I have to leave my assignment at 10:30 to catch the shuttle downtown to attend a weekly lunch meeting. I catch the shuttle back at 1, arriving at 1:30. So, I lose half my day to this lunch meeting, which presents information that may or may not apply to me. When it’s good, it’s very good, and when it’s not….well, it isn’t. I guess I should be grateful–it cuts down on my phone time, right? But I actually find it quite frustrating that I have to be mindful of what time it is and choose whether or not I can dig deeper with someone based on how close it is to shuttle time. Or cut them short and tell them I will have to call them back in the afternoon. I can’t just *do my work* as I do on my other field days, taking lunch when it is convenient for me and my clients.

Since I am at the hospital and clinic anyway, I also have any thyroid labs drawn that I need, and pick up scrips, and schedule doc appointments. Therefore, Wednesdays exhaust me. And because they exhaust me, I reward myself with deep fried chicken dipped in hot sauce. And continue to get out of bed each and every Wednesday.