Laughter Is The Best Medicine

A member of my immediate family unexpectedly ended up at the Mayo Clinic a few years ago. This particular location is one of Mayo’s hospital facilities in North Scottsdale. It’s a phenomenal place (the quality overall is absolutely tremendous too). When you walk in through the main entrance, you enter the “Angel and Paul Harvey Atrium”. This atrium is huge and goes all the way up to the roof – about 6 floors up. It’s very spacious and surrounded on 3 sides by the actual hospital. It feels more like an swanky hotel lobby than a hospital. There’s even a grand piano in one corner (frequently with a musician at work).

On a visit, my wife was waiting for the elevator and was making small talk with a distracted looking lady.

My wife observed, “Wow, isn’t this place incredible? It hardly seems like a hospital!”

To which the lady replied, in a perfunctory manner, “I lost my husband in this place.”

Silence.

My wife stunned, asked, “You mean today?”

The stranger replied, “Yes, he went out to the car to get his cell phone, and I haven’t seen him since.”

She never realized how my wife had initially interpreted her words.