Nocturnality at my best!

These past few nights Ive once again become a nocturnal creature of the night... silently lurking in the shadows of dimly lit corridors... awaiting to pounce on victim who may dare to ring for me or call out my name!...
Yeah, ive been working a couple nights shifts... & I love em really! You come across some pretty dead quiet nights, but then, oh others can become very "interesting." Can't share too much so as not to violate the "patient confidentiality" dealio.... all i can say is... the other night there must have been a full moon or something! Everyone was up wide awake, two in the morning ready for the next day, thinking i was the crazy in telling them they could in fact sleep for another couple hours. I then walk by the TV room where one of our residents had fallen asleep. Oh gosh.... images... scarring...cant get them out of head... {cover eyes}! [click] whew.... Then I trounse into the dining room only to get scared crapless in seeing a white faced figure reflecting in the moonlight in the dining room corner, with apron on, eating coffee grounds, ready for breakfast. Thats only one of many.... interesting.... very interesting.....
So, anyways, durring my shift, after much creeping about we begin to arouse our residents a bit after four in the morning... um ok, who in the hecks name... old or young, with it or not... would want to be woken up at four in the morning just to "get ready for a brand new day"... I always feel so horrid doing it...
"Oh... you want to sleep a little more do yah... well too bad for you cuz we're on quite the tight schedule and if we dont , the next shift is going suffocate us with used catheder bags... jab us with dull needles, oh & hopefully then murder us, & violently huck us in the icy caverns of the basement morgue!
So because I trully love these people so much, and they always brighten my day, I try to wake em up a bit funnly by using different tactics of choice! Sometimes it comes with gentle strokes/hugs of love, other times a little dose of humour will do it... Oh-ho, but the other night I pulled a new one out! While soothingly washing a face with a warm cloth, I asked this elderly woman if she had ever seen a person with a piercing through their tongue...
She then looked at me like i was crazy and shook violently saying "NO!!"...
"Hoho ( I snicker) she's in for a real treat!"
Thus I got right up close to her face and without warning stuck out of my own metal cladden tongue... At that very moment her sweet wrinkled face twisted and contorted, eyes sucked in, and rigamortis kicked in (not really, just ryhmed thats all)... I wasnt sure if she was going to laugh, cry, pull out her 12-gauge, die, scream & ring her bell, die on me, convulse, or die on me...! She flew, as fast as an old person can fly, in shock, as far away from me as possible most likely in disgust and horror! Hit the rail on the other end of the bed...! So, I pull a julia and started laughing heartily and upon hearing my boustrous grunts, she then perked up a bit and was bright-eyed and bushy-tailed from that moment one.... yeah that tactic worked all right!!!
Got me thinking about how as time goes by, standards of what is acceptable change as well ... things that were once considered unacceptable, have now not only become much less scorned, but commonplace!
"Back in the day" tattoos & piercings were reserved for the rebels... In school I remember drawing all over my skin with those washable smelly markers that taste real good, strutting around thinking I was such a heathen to even immitate getting a tattoo....
"Yeah... thats right... send me to the corner for time out! Show me your worst, cuz I've shown you mine!"
Now-a-days tattoos are seen as a way of expressing ones self, and are quite common amongst all races, ages and religions.
Making tattoos & piercings acceptable seems pretty harmless (& heaps of fun!!), but what scares me is how acceptable we are coming to other not so harmless issues. Different cultures, beliefs, values, practices. How far will we go, how much will we sacrifice, jeopardize and give up to try an accept everyone in what they believe is right/wrong, moral/immoral.
Will we just become so tolerant of everything, that nothing is considered wrong, because just one person feels its ok. What will be next? Hmmmmm..... intriguing yes... not really sure where I was going with that one... but I already went there....
Anyways... better go muster up a pot of tea to perk myself up for another long night! Hey maybe something partially exciting will happen tonight... ooo maybe the unit goldfish will die... yes, yes maybe... he.... will (muahahaha).... suicide by air pocket... its not like ill help him along or anything.... HA-HA-HA..... one more night.... one more.....