A Case of Senioritis

The leaves in Connecticut are starting to change which reminds me that I have been here too long.
In a week, I won't have to get up at 4 o'clock in the morning.
I have senioritis.

Just the other day, I was standing in the surgery suite, doing nothing, as usual, scrubbed in, while I observe the surgeons muck around. I cross my hands, fully aware that my armpits are not sterile. The whole notion of what is sterile and not sterile boggles me.



If you raise your arms above your nipples, you are not sterile.
Yet, surgeons raise their arms above their head to attach sterile handles to the surgery lights above.
If you let your arms down below your waist, you are not sterile.
Although all you touched was air, you somehow crossed a different stratosphere between your waist and your knees, where the unseen microorganisms have unionized and gathered.
Your armpits are nasty. I guess since the armpit hair is exactly similar to your pubic hair and the sweat glands in your underarm crevice produces the same type of sweat as the glands in your crotch, you tend to associate your armpits with something less then cleanly and you won't exactly relish the thought of snuggling next to something that smells and looks like crotch, unless, of course, you sway that way.
Hence, we have the psychological aversion. In the OR, however, we have clothed this armpit area with an undershirt, for some, scrub tops, and sheathed a sterile gown, which has a waterproof barrier, over the nastiness and yet somehow, the thought of sweat seaping through those layers of material to stop at the waterproof barrier, is too much to bear.

With that in mind, I conscientiously crossed my arms. Of course, the nurses in the OR, who don't usually use their brains and are as intractable as a tire iron, who put up a placard and say they do it "for the benefit of the patient", says this to me:
"You can't cross your arms in your armpits; they aren't sterile."
Six weeks ago, I would have bit my tongue and asked if their royalty would like me to break scrub and change my gloves. Today, my patience is nowhere to be found.
"Well actually," I ventured. "My hands are by the side of my breasts and they are still sterile."

The surgeon laughs as I drew back my whip and holster it.
There is more politics in the OR than all of Capitol Hill and I have had my intelligience insulted for one of the few last times.