Mucus on Call

Mack Hall
Mhall46184@aol.com

Mucus on Call

My mother’s last words to me were not “I love you,” but rather “Now you know I like lots of ice in my ice water” (I obeyed, and found the ice machine near the nurses’ station). If in the last hours of her life a trio of unemployed musicians had intruded with their own unique stylings of “Lady of Spain” or “Harbor Lights” she would have firmly pointed them to the door.

A singularly annoying radio commercial has recently been blighting the aether with advertisements for an organization tooting itself Musicians on Call. The theme of this organization is that if you will give them money then they will send teams of musicians to hospital bedsides so that patients might die cute.

The geriatric Hallmarxism of the ads is as unrealistic as it is patronizing – to Musicians on Call the patient is always elderly, and the intrusive melodists play sentimental music which provokes everyone present to hug each other and have a good cry.

I think I’d preferred being gnawed to death by blood-crazed, tone-deaf hamsters in a post-apocalyptic desolation.

My mother despised being baby-talked as “sweetie” or “honey” or “darling” by complete strangers, and certainly no one who knew her would have dared do so. As she often said, “I’m old; I’m not stupid.” Musicians on Call, through their ads, suggest that they wish to make dying as insipid as the baby-talk, a made-for-television movieness that focuses on the preciousness of the musicians and not on the needs of one of God’s children making the transition to another world.

Someone who is dying might want lots of people on call: physicians, nurses, the nice aide who brings lunch and helps with a bath, a priest, and a friend, all those people who bring comfort and dignity. Elvis impersonators – maybe not.

“Code Blues…Code Blues…we need a jazz trombonist in Room 304 stat!”

“Nurse, I’ll need some nylon sutures, a dressing tray, and a harmonica.”

“There was a fire and explosion at the plant, and we expect mass casualties – send all the flutists to the triage area.”

“I’m sorry but your father is not doing well. Do you want us to call his priest or minister, or maybe a high school marching band?”

What if the patient wants German opera, not just another look-alike, tee-shirted, unshaven thirty-something with a guitar?

Do our soldiers and Marines in combat call out “Corpsman! I need a Corpsman over here! And a pianist who specializes in post-war Italian cinema soundtracks!”

What next? Klowns on Kall? Jugglers on Call?

Okay, so maybe I’m being unfair. Maybe Musicians on Call is a good thing. I dunno. It’s a big non-profit (alarm bells ring) and raises money for itself all over America. But whatever its virtues, M on C is not well served by its annoying radio ads.

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