These are two of my least favorite things. Ok, maybe take the telephone alone and maybe take the pager out of the hospital and they're alright. (The pager would be ok because it doesn't work more than a few hundred meters away from the hospital). I've been in the hospital a lot lately as evident by my late posts, and these two marvels of modern technology has been the bane of my existence. They say to not kill the messenger but it's sometimes tough to not throw these things out of the window (luckily there are no windows in the on-call room, kinda like a cell). Remember Pavlov and his drooling dogs? I think I have been classically conditioned by these devices to associate their sounds with pain. When they go off, my heart jumps, I start to sweat, and feel like vomiting. But then again, often times the pager or phone rings because a baby's heart is "jumping", the child is sweating excessively from pain, or is vomiting because of bowel obstruction. I guess it is all about keeping perspective. I've left the hospital and have turned off the pager for now giving the "messenger", and myself, a break until tomorrow. Maybe I'll see Alien Vs. Predator tonight and give my heart a chance to jump, sweat from anxiety, and vomit from the gore...I can only hope that the movie will be that good!