Read with a sense of humor..

Day 247. I’m still here. The doctors don’t know what to tell me anymore, as I don’t know what to do with myself either. I’m bored. When your sick, sick like I am, you think a lot. Not just thinking like, I wonder what’s for dinner today, but I mean solid thinking. You think a lot about what you did with your life, who you are and what your life will be like when your external body gives. My mind and soul feel healthy, only my body isn’t on the same level. Tomorrow Reverend Teitsworth will make his weekly visit. My family sends him to me weekly because they really don’t know when I’m going to go. I think by sending the Reverend weekly, my family can say they and I were ready when it does happen.
Day 248. I feel my body is weaker but I can tell today is not the day. I press the button to call the nurse but she doesn’t come right away. I’m not surprised she didn’t come quickly, after day 156 the nurse’s stopped coming so soon because they realized I really don’t need anything and that I’m just messing with them for my own immature pleasure. After 10 minutes, when I could of already been dead, the nurse comes in, sees I’m fine, and says “good morning”, she informs me that the Reverend will be here in a couple hours. I swallow my spit, sigh, and sit in my bed and do my daily thinking.
I hear a knock at the door as a man, who I have never seen, walks through the door with his dog on a leash. He is short and stocky. His hair color is brown as his hairstyle is shaggy. He wears olive-green cargo shorts and his socks come up to his shins. A black t-shirt with the words “Choose Rhetoric”, are worn across his chest. I think to myself, “Who is this Jack Black looking guy? And what’s with the dog?” He introduces himself, “Hello sport! My name is Ramage, I’m waiting for a friend of mine to get out of ER and I’m pretty bored.”
Ramage sits in the chair next to my bed. I’m intrigued and confused by this character never the less, I allow him to sit as I listen to what he says, I mean what else do I have to do today? He asks me who I am and I respond confused, “Um, okay… My name’s Renee and I have been in this hospital for 248 days. Do you need something?”
He stops me dead on and says, “No, who are you?”
“Okay… I’m Renee, I’m supposed to die soon but before I was in this hospital I was an advertising manager for Harley-Davidson Motorcycles” I said.
“Ohhh one of those! You looked like one those. When I walked through the door, I wasn’t sure, but now… Yes, I see it.”
I laughed to myself, the ignorance of this man, coming into my room and telling me I’m “one of those”. I state inquisitively, “What’s that supposed to mean?”
“Oh nothing, just you guys over at Harley really know how to sell those bikes. You know, telling the consumer, you can be just like ‘Easy Rider’ even though we all know those unemployed characters would never have the money to get one of your bikes. You allow the consumer to feel like they have some kind of “edge” and still maintain a cultural status.”
That caught me off guard, yeah that was pretty much our marketing scheme, but how did Ramage catch that? I respond, “Well, Ramage, they are just bikes, its not like these bikes are who those people are it’s just something they enjoy, a hobby.”
Ramage smirks at me, “Oh no my friend, it is who they are, their consumer-readymades, this is all a matter of Rhetoric.”
“Consumer whats, Rhetoric?” I say.
“Consumer ready-mades. Consumer ready-mades are the consumers who buy your Harley bikes. They could easily buy a cost, fuel-efficient Ford, but they choose not to. They want the bike. They see the men and woman riding the bikes, with there hair blowing in the wind and riding off into the distance. The people who buy your bikes, either consciously or unconsciously wants that same experience. That is why they buy your bike. And as far as Rhetoric, this conversation of who we are and the underlying meanings behind what we say and do, this is all rhetoric. ”
“You know Ramage, I doubt this matters to you, but just to let you know, I’m dying. I do not appreciate you talking about my job as if I sit there and try to manipulate consumers; it’s a business. On top of it, your views don’t matter much to me, I have already thought about the meaning of life and identity, I’m done with thinking.”
“Well that’s about the most interesting thing I heard all day. We’ll if you’re so convinced in your ways, you must not mind enlightening me then.”
What a cocky guy, he reminds me of myself so I don’t mind him being here.
“Alright Ramage, so if who we are is only a matter of what we consume, and we don’t own things they own us, then what about people who aren’t consumers like us?”
“Well Renee, who are is also to say who we are not. But it’s the fact that your not just one thing, this is what I mean by rhetoric. Some may feel our identity stems from only genes; others feel it’s a matter of experiences that shape who we are. Me, I feel, it is everything. Part genes, part experience, its hard to say where the gene aspect ends and experience begins. We are never one solid thing, only serious-people think that way, are you a serious person?”
“Serious person? Well no, I play random jokes on people all the time; I feel I’m never that serious. What do you mean, serious?”
“I mean, do you think one-dimensionally? Do you believe in many truths, one truth, what do you think?”
“Well I believe in the Bible, in Jesus Christ. I don’t think one-dimensionally but I try to base my actions off of the way the Bible says I should. I’m not a “Jesus freak” and sometimes my actions will stray away from what I think I’m supposed to do, but no, I do not feel anything is set in stone.”
“Well than you’re a rhetorical person.”
I guess at this point my confusion about rhetoric was fading. I believe Ramage is trying to say with the use of Rhetoric nothing is one certain way. Things can be interpret many ways. But I was still confused as to what the point was to all this rambling conversation. The way I was always taught in school was to not be ignorant and to be open to all views, but in a world where things need to get done in light-speed time, there needs to be some sort of unity or at least a common opinion among society in order to get anything accomplished in this world. So instead of letting Ramage ask me another life-meaning question, I decided to ask him the next one.
“Well, Mr. Ramage, if were supposed to look at all angles of a situation in the hopes to make a truly efficient and educated decision, then how is anything going to get accomplished in society if were all arguing about the way we should approach a situation?”
Ramage chuckles, “Smartass. To me, it is not about arguing about everything, its just about being open to everything. Being aware that not everyone thinks the same way. Yes, we do need to agree on some things in order to get food into our stomachs and clothes on our backs, but I think we can all agree that we need food to survive, right?”
“Right.”
“So yes, if we all agree we need food to survive, society will come together to satisfy that need. But with rhetoric, it’s not about trying to be difficult, it’s about seeing the gray area between what is thought to be black and white situations.”
“Alright, alright, I understand Ramage. I will keep all this in mind. You have given me a lot to think about. I never was a one-dimensional thinker, I always thought I was a two-dimensional thinker, never a gray-thinker.”
“Yeah rhetoric can be tough to swallow, but once your introduced to the idea you begin to see and think of things differently.”
As Ramage finished that sentence Reverend Teitsworth grazed through the door, Bible in hand.
“Well Ramage, I wish we could stay and chat, but it’s that time of the week.”
“Yeah, its cool, I gotta go check on my friend anyway, chances are he is still sitting in the waiting room with blood dripping onto the floor.” Then Ramage sarcastically says, “But is he really bleeding? Is blood who he is?”
“Shut-up Ramage, you have a good one.”
Ramage nods at the Reverend as he walks down the hall in the opposite direction of the way to ER. That Ramage guy was pretty interesting. Just when I thought I knew how I wanted to look at life, Ramage comes in and changes it all. Let’s just say I had a few questions for Reverend Teitsworth.