4 ms·

I've seen a version of this in person. Used to go to this restaurant after my Saturday morning movie, just to have lunch. This wee gal working there on that s

I've seen a version of this in person. Used to go to this restaurant after my Saturday morning movie, just to have lunch. This wee gal working there on that shift, usually, noted that I would pull my ticket stub out (along with other things I was planning on pitching) and began to regularly ask me what I thought of whatever movie I had seen. One Saturday I came in and was instantly struck with a kind of floating anxiety, that something was wrong. Well, it smelled like someone who was very, very ill. I see her and her color is all off: pale but for two spots of color. Her respiration is fast, shallow, and her rib cage looks lifted. As in there is a lot of pain on one or both sides above the hips. When I get to the counter, I ask if she's alright trying to play cool about it (inside I am freaking out a bit). She says she's going home in a few hours. And what can I do? I can't finish my lunch, I'm so keyed up because everything is telling me that this is a very sick person. As I leave, I am trying to be casual but again ask if she has someone to come pick her up. She says she'll be fine. She's not there for the next four or five weeks. When she returns, she tells me that she collapsed a couple of hours later and spent a week in the hospital with septicemia from her kidney infection from some obstruction. Apparently kidney stuff runs in her family when they get older. But she's young. I look at her nails, something in the corners. I use my nose again. Because this is kind of a healthy place. Again, trying to be casual, "Hey, do you like spinach?" She proceeds to tell me how she loves spinach and just "grazes" on it constantly at work. "Handfuls," according to her. Because this place throws uncooked spinach leaves on everything. I scribble down on the back of a receipt a note for her to bring to her doctor during followup, because my guess is she just grazed herself into some oxalate stones. Been very wary of spinach since.

23kfuhfsdf 3y ago
What were the nail orners indicative of? How were you able to identify spinach consumption from smell and nails? Was it because there were bits of spinach in her nails and it smelled like raw spinach?
- at_a_remove 3y ago
  They had a greenish tinge along the, I don't know the technical term for it, the line between the nail proper and the bed. But she smelled, uh, "leafy?" I have a particularly keen sense of smell and, well ... like fresh green leaves, in a vegetable kind of way. But it was enough for me to make the connection.

23kfuhfsdf 3y ago

What were the nail orners indicative of? How were you able to identify spinach consumption from smell and nails? Was it because there were bits of spinach in her nails and it smelled like raw spinach?

at_a_remove 3y ago
They had a greenish tinge along the, I don't know the technical term for it, the line between the nail proper and the bed. But she smelled, uh, "leafy?" I have a particularly keen sense of smell and, well ... like fresh green leaves, in a vegetable kind of way. But it was enough for me to make the connection.