Dumb or dinner?

"I’d suggest something light," said Shorthair. "You’ll be having surgery tomorrow and you don’t want anything too heavy on your stomach."

As if the thought hadn’t occurred to me too. I wasn’t tempted by the page with the salad and crudites she suggested, and flipped through the pages aimlessly. Nando picked up the booklet. "How about paella? It comes in orders for two people." Done.

We placed the order at about 6:35 pm. I was already hungry. Nando said he wasn’t but without half an hour he announced that he was down in sugar and when was dinner going to arrive? I went looking for one of the nurses. "It will arrive at 8 pm." I went back to give my husband the bad news but in the meantime he had fallen asleep. I tried to read in bed, but the light was on my left, so when I picked up the book, the shadow fell directly across the page and I couldn’t see well. It was too late to ask Nando to change beds so I tried sitting cross-legged at an angle to compensate for my left-handedness. That wasn’t comfortable. Every time I reached for the light switch, by accident I wound up hitting the nurse’s button instead. Dumb or dumber would dutifully show up a few minutes later, and I would feel even dumber explaining what had happened.