Thank God For Uncle Nunzio

Scene: A large hospital in the metropolitan area.
A harried looking woman paces back and forth in front of a busy nurse’s stand, speaking too loudly on a cell phone:

“Hello, Uncle Nunzio! I’m so glad you called.

Yes, Yes, I know how concerned you are about my mother. She’s doing pretty well at the moment, but things –

No, no! I didn’t mean that. Everything’s okay. You don’t have to come. It’s okay. Really! I’m here now. Everything’s under control.

Uncle Nunzio, listen to me. Please. They’re treating her great. Just the way you like. With respect. The nurses. The doctors. Everyone.

I’m sure.

Anyway, you’re so busy with the business and all, we couldn’t impose on you.

WHAT? You want to send Vinnie the Who? No, please, do not do that at this time. No, I’m sure that she wouldn’t fall or nobody would give her the wrong medicine or anything bad like that.

Yes, yes, I know what you’d do. But let’s not talk of such things now. I’m sure it will be fine, with everyone paying so much attention to her.

Yes, we hope to get her home for Thanksgiving. With the family. Yes, that will mean a lot. To all of us.

Flowers would be nice. She likes pink. Yes, I know you know.

Talk to you tomorrow. Same time. And God bless you too, Uncle Nunzio. Ciao!”

The conversation you have just heard is a work of fiction, and any resemblance to actual persons living or (about to be) dead is purely coincidental.

Honestly, I don’t even have an Uncle Nunzio, although there have been many times in my life when I wished I did. And many times when I pretended I did . . .

Thanks to shows like The Sopranos, brilliant but disturbing, and the Jersey Shore, disgusting and beyond disturbing, people have gotten the idea that if your last name ends in a vowel, as you may have noticed mine does, you have, shall we say . . . connections.

And while my family, sometimes gentile to the point of near Waspishness, is offended by this notion of having anthing to do with the Mafia, I am not above pretending that there is a real Uncle Nunzio in my life when all else has failed — in difficult situations, like dealing with demanding clients, the Cable Guy, or . . . the staff of hospitals.

What can I say about health so-called care system that hasn’t been said before, so often by me?

So I’ll keep this short and sweet, and just give thanks on this wonderful holiday for Uncle Nunzio. Even if he is, in the immortal words of Fred The Lawyer, a Fig Newton of my imagination.

Not for nothin’, but . . .

HAPPY THANKSGIVING, EVERYONE!