May 1, 2005

Dear Mr. Bush,

There's confusion in the food supply: Janice ordered roasted chicken but got ham and cheese. The food service people at the hospital have yet to get a meal right, even though they enter your order on a Palm Pilot. Order chicken and get ham. Order a sandwich and get pasta. Order ice cream and get pudding. Working on no sleep, you begin to wonder if it's you: Did you actually order Italian dressing even though you remember ordering ranch? Would you possibly have said coffee instead of cranberry juice?

This is life in the hospital: You are not in charge. You wake up when they want you to wake up, groggily following your son's bassinet as the night nurse wheels it down to the nursery, all the while insisting that you "don't need to come along if you don't want to, sir." You eat when they tell you to eat, you have visitors when they tell you it's OK, and you leave when they say you can leave. We can't leave yet, and so we order another meal and wait to see what they get wrong this time.

Dan