EMT class has been going on long enough now that I'm completely comfortable with my classmates. Still, we don't really know each other all that well. Sometimes I wonder what sort of impression these people have of me. Thinking back to last week's classes, there are three scenes that stand out in particular as moments that may illustrate how I'm viewed by the class.

*****

Class begins, and I immediately raise my hand and say, "I have a question." I then pause for a moment before adding, "I don't know why I bother to preface my question by stating that I have a question, given that I always have a question." The class chuckles at this BECAUSE IT IS TRUE. And then the instructor says, "How about from now on I just start the class with, 'Kelly, do you have a question?'" I laugh and say, "And I will. I WILL."

*****

A classmate asks if anyone has a cough drop, and I respond that I think I have one in my handbag. I proceed to plop my purse onto the table and dig through it in pursuit of the cough drop, muttering "I know I have one somewhere..." and "I swear I saw it just the other day." I have officially become my mother. No, my grandmother. As I search, someone says, "Yeah, she'll have one. She's got everything in there." I find this comment curious since I can't recall ever having produced, for this group, anything from my purse except a stick of gum, and who doesn't carry gum in their bag? Still, as I sift through the contents I conclude that their assumption is accurate. I encounter several pens (one broken), tissues, lotion, restaurant receipts, empty candy wrappers, list-laden Post-It notes, multiple over-the-counter drugs, a year's supply of tampons and pantyliners, lip glosses galore, countless coupons, a cell phone, an iPod, a flash drive, two passports and, finally and triumphantly, one lint-covered cough drop!

*****

Paula and I are practicing scenarios in class, and our "patient" is a person who has slit her wrist in an attempted suicide. She is, for obvious reasons, not cooperating. When Paula starts to put an oxygen mask on her, the patient shoves it away. Paula looks at the instructor's assistant, unsure how to handle this. "Be a little more forceful," he suggests. As she tries again, I look at the patient and say in my take-no-shit voice, "Put it on and SUCK IT UP." (This has since become the motto of the class.)