exact. The same hospital they took President Reagan to when he got shot.
9. Instead of having to visit the triage nurse upon arrival at the emergency room, like everyone else, you are wheeled in right away, ahead of all the gang-bangers bleeding from knife wounds, women in labor, people with pencils wedged into their eye sockets, etc.
8. Everywhere you are sent inside George Washington University Hospital, men in black suits with ear thingies follow you.
7. When they give you a hospital gown to wear because your clothes are all wet, and you refuse to put it on because the back is all cut out, they give you another one, so you can wear one that opens in the front and one that opens in the back, thus covering all of you. No one else in the entire hospital gets two gowns but you.
6. You get your own private room with armed guards at the door, even though all that is wrong with you is your broken wrist.
5. When the doctor comes in to examine you, he goes, âSo youâre the girl who saved the president!â
4. When you say in abject mortification, âWell, not really,â the doctor goes, âThatâs not what I hear. Youâre a national hero!â
3. When he tells you that your wrist is broken in two places and that you will have to wear a cast from the elbow down for six weeks, instead of giving you a lollipop or whatever, he asks for your autograph.
2. While you are waiting for the cast guys to come and fix your arm, you switch on your private roomâs TV and see that on every channel there is a Breaking News bulletin. Then Tom Brokaw comes on and says that an attempt has been made on the life of the president. Then he says that the attempt was thwarted by the heroic act of a single individual. Then they show the picture of you from your school ID.
The one where you were blinking just as the photographer took the picture. The one where your hair was looking particularly bushy and out of control. The one you have never showed to anyone for fear of being publicly mocked and ridiculed.
And the number-one way you can tell your life will never be the same:
1. You scream so loudly when you see your hideous school photo on national television that about thirty Secret Service agents burst into your room, pistols drawn, demanding to know if youâre all right.
7
I guess , even then, it didnât really hit me.
I mean, I knew . You know, that I had jumped on Mr. Uptown Girlâs back and kept him from firing that gun in the direction heâd meant to.
But it didnât hit me that in doing so I had actually saved the life of the leader of the free world.
At least, it didnât hit me until my parents came bursting into my hospital room a little while later, after the cast was on (and after Iâd seen my face all over the major networks, as well as CNN, Headline News, and even Entertainment Tonight ), both of them freaked beyond belief.
âSamantha!â my mom cried, falling all over me and jostling my busted arm, for which, I might add, no one had so much as offered me an aspirin. You would think that a girl who saved the life of the president would rank some painkillers, but apparently not. âOh, my God, we were so worried!â
âHi, Mom,â I said, all faintlyâyou know, the way you talk when youâre faking sick. Because I hadnât figured out whether the Secret Service guys had ratted me out yet about skipping my drawing class, so I wasnât sure how much trouble I was in. I figured if they thought I was in a lot of pain, theyâd lay off.
But they didnât seem to have a clue about my skipping out on Susan Boone.
âSamantha,â my mom kept saying, sinking down onto the edge of my bed and pushing my hair around on my forehead. âAre you allright? Is it just your arm? Does anything else hurt?â
âNo,â I said. âItâs just my arm. Iâm fine. Really.â
But I still said it all faint, and stuff, just in case.
I
9. Instead of having to visit the triage nurse upon arrival at the emergency room, like everyone else, you are wheeled in right away, ahead of all the gang-bangers bleeding from knife wounds, women in labor, people with pencils wedged into their eye sockets, etc.
8. Everywhere you are sent inside George Washington University Hospital, men in black suits with ear thingies follow you.
7. When they give you a hospital gown to wear because your clothes are all wet, and you refuse to put it on because the back is all cut out, they give you another one, so you can wear one that opens in the front and one that opens in the back, thus covering all of you. No one else in the entire hospital gets two gowns but you.
6. You get your own private room with armed guards at the door, even though all that is wrong with you is your broken wrist.
5. When the doctor comes in to examine you, he goes, âSo youâre the girl who saved the president!â
4. When you say in abject mortification, âWell, not really,â the doctor goes, âThatâs not what I hear. Youâre a national hero!â
3. When he tells you that your wrist is broken in two places and that you will have to wear a cast from the elbow down for six weeks, instead of giving you a lollipop or whatever, he asks for your autograph.
2. While you are waiting for the cast guys to come and fix your arm, you switch on your private roomâs TV and see that on every channel there is a Breaking News bulletin. Then Tom Brokaw comes on and says that an attempt has been made on the life of the president. Then he says that the attempt was thwarted by the heroic act of a single individual. Then they show the picture of you from your school ID.
The one where you were blinking just as the photographer took the picture. The one where your hair was looking particularly bushy and out of control. The one you have never showed to anyone for fear of being publicly mocked and ridiculed.
And the number-one way you can tell your life will never be the same:
1. You scream so loudly when you see your hideous school photo on national television that about thirty Secret Service agents burst into your room, pistols drawn, demanding to know if youâre all right.
7
I guess , even then, it didnât really hit me.
I mean, I knew . You know, that I had jumped on Mr. Uptown Girlâs back and kept him from firing that gun in the direction heâd meant to.
But it didnât hit me that in doing so I had actually saved the life of the leader of the free world.
At least, it didnât hit me until my parents came bursting into my hospital room a little while later, after the cast was on (and after Iâd seen my face all over the major networks, as well as CNN, Headline News, and even Entertainment Tonight ), both of them freaked beyond belief.
âSamantha!â my mom cried, falling all over me and jostling my busted arm, for which, I might add, no one had so much as offered me an aspirin. You would think that a girl who saved the life of the president would rank some painkillers, but apparently not. âOh, my God, we were so worried!â
âHi, Mom,â I said, all faintlyâyou know, the way you talk when youâre faking sick. Because I hadnât figured out whether the Secret Service guys had ratted me out yet about skipping my drawing class, so I wasnât sure how much trouble I was in. I figured if they thought I was in a lot of pain, theyâd lay off.
But they didnât seem to have a clue about my skipping out on Susan Boone.
âSamantha,â my mom kept saying, sinking down onto the edge of my bed and pushing my hair around on my forehead. âAre you allright? Is it just your arm? Does anything else hurt?â
âNo,â I said. âItâs just my arm. Iâm fine. Really.â
But I still said it all faint, and stuff, just in case.
I
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