Some days I\u2019m a pen shedder, and some days I\u2019m a pen accumulator. Today was one of the latter. When I emptied my pockets at the end of my shift, I had three pens. One was red, strangely enough, so not particularly useful, but there was one quite nice one that I didn\u2019t recognize at all. Odd to have been using it all day, signing drug charts and the like, with no idea of where it came from. It\u2019s a keeper though, unless someone else recognizes it and claims it, or until I lose it on my next shedding day.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
Some days I\u2019m a pen shedder, and some days I\u2019m a pen accumulator.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_jetpack_newsletter_access":"","_jetpack_dont_email_post_to_subs":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_tier_id":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paywalled_content":false,"_jetpack_feature_clip_id":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":"","jetpack_publicize_message":"","jetpack_publicize_feature_enabled":true,"jetpack_social_post_already_shared":true,"jetpack_social_options":{"image_generator_settings":{"template":"highway","default_image_id":0,"font":"","enabled":false},"version":2},"jetpack_post_was_ever_published":false},"categories":[1],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-4215","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-uncategorized"],"jetpack_publicize_connections":[],"jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"jetpack_shortlink":"https:\/\/wp.me\/pa8Ukf-15Z","jetpack-related-posts":[{"id":12100,"url":"https:\/\/accordingtokirsty.com\/index.php\/2025\/09\/08\/and-so-it-is-written\/","url_meta":{"origin":4215,"position":0},"title":"And so it is written","author":"Interloper11","date":"September 8, 2025","format":false,"excerpt":"Some days when I\u2019m taking off my scrubs and putting on my own clothes in the changing room of whatever hospital I\u2019m working at, I find several pens in my pocket, when I started the day with only one. This is never the result of deliberate theft, I hasten to\u2026","rel":"","context":"Similar post","block_context":{"text":"Similar post","link":""},"img":{"alt_text":"","src":"https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/accordingtokirsty.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2025\/09\/IMG_0954-746x1024.jpeg?resize=350%2C200&ssl=1","width":350,"height":200,"srcset":"https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/accordingtokirsty.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2025\/09\/IMG_0954-746x1024.jpeg?resize=350%2C200&ssl=1 1x, https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/accordingtokirsty.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2025\/09\/IMG_0954-746x1024.jpeg?resize=525%2C300&ssl=1 1.5x"},"classes":[]},{"id":7829,"url":"https:\/\/accordingtokirsty.com\/index.php\/2022\/04\/30\/mind-your-language\/","url_meta":{"origin":4215,"position":1},"title":"Mind your language","author":"Interloper11","date":"April 30, 2022","format":false,"excerpt":"If four decades of French lessons has taught me anything, it\u2019s the importance of living in the present. That\u2019s because all the other tenses are so much harder to remember ha ha! This morning\u2019s lesson was on sexism in French politics. It didn\u2019t start well, because the dog literally ate\u2026","rel":"","context":"Similar post","block_context":{"text":"Similar post","link":""},"img":{"alt_text":"","src":"https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/accordingtokirsty.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2022\/04\/6AF17266-D170-470E-8B85-A53124B893E7-300x225.jpeg?resize=350%2C200&ssl=1","width":350,"height":200},"classes":[]},{"id":4431,"url":"https:\/\/accordingtokirsty.com\/index.php\/2020\/03\/25\/letting-it-all-go\/","url_meta":{"origin":4215,"position":2},"title":"Letting it all go","author":"Interloper11","date":"March 25, 2020","format":false,"excerpt":"Things are very different in the public hospital now. Normally I like to appear tidy and well put together, with smart outfits and matching jewellery. But this is the new regime under which we are living: To protect ourselves and our family, we need to be really minimalist now. Crappy\u2026","rel":"","context":"Similar post","block_context":{"text":"Similar post","link":""},"img":{"alt_text":"","src":"https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/accordingtokirsty.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2020\/03\/742FCBF8-EF74-4085-8103-12C1C85368BE-749x1024.jpeg?resize=350%2C200&ssl=1","width":350,"height":200,"srcset":"https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/accordingtokirsty.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2020\/03\/742FCBF8-EF74-4085-8103-12C1C85368BE-749x1024.jpeg?resize=350%2C200&ssl=1 1x, https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/accordingtokirsty.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2020\/03\/742FCBF8-EF74-4085-8103-12C1C85368BE-749x1024.jpeg?resize=525%2C300&ssl=1 1.5x"},"classes":[]},{"id":11913,"url":"https:\/\/accordingtokirsty.com\/index.php\/2025\/07\/05\/human-nature\/","url_meta":{"origin":4215,"position":3},"title":"Human nature","author":"Interloper11","date":"July 5, 2025","format":false,"excerpt":"Had a late start organised this morning for my list at the private hospital. Well, actually it was an early start for an afternoon list but we needn\u2019t quibble. It\u2019s a clear and cold wintry morning, and when I got into the changing room, this is what I found. The\u2026","rel":"","context":"Similar post","block_context":{"text":"Similar post","link":""},"img":{"alt_text":"","src":"https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/accordingtokirsty.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2025\/06\/IMG_2778-300x225.jpeg?resize=350%2C200&ssl=1","width":350,"height":200},"classes":[]},{"id":1939,"url":"https:\/\/accordingtokirsty.com\/index.php\/2019\/03\/28\/mad-scribblings\/","url_meta":{"origin":4215,"position":4},"title":"Mad scribblings","author":"Interloper11","date":"March 28, 2019","format":false,"excerpt":"Young people will probably have no idea what\u2019s going on here - the rest of you may recognize it\u2019s me desperately trying to get my stupid bloody ballpoint pen to work.","rel":"","context":"Similar post","block_context":{"text":"Similar post","link":""},"img":{"alt_text":"","src":"https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/accordingtokirsty.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2019\/03\/A054D897-D851-4D5E-BC03-D3EA6F32FAFF-225x300.jpeg?resize=350%2C200&ssl=1","width":350,"height":200},"classes":[]},{"id":2954,"url":"https:\/\/accordingtokirsty.com\/index.php\/2019\/07\/25\/its-a-hard-life\/","url_meta":{"origin":4215,"position":5},"title":"It\u2019s a hard life","author":"Interloper11","date":"July 25, 2019","format":false,"excerpt":"Overheard on the ward - nurses talking: \u201c...and then the patient said to me \u201cif you hurt me I\u2019ll stab you with my pen!\u201d but it was only a Sharpie so it probably wouldn\u2019t have hurt too much, so...\u201d These people need a pay rise.","rel":"","context":"Similar post","block_context":{"text":"Similar post","link":""},"img":{"alt_text":"","src":"https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/accordingtokirsty.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2019\/07\/5622585C-BA2E-4D02-8483-5B4E26C7F88C-300x192.jpeg?resize=350%2C200&ssl=1","width":350,"height":200},"classes":[]}],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/accordingtokirsty.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/4215","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/accordingtokirsty.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/accordingtokirsty.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/accordingtokirsty.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/accordingtokirsty.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=4215"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/accordingtokirsty.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/4215\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/accordingtokirsty.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=4215"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/accordingtokirsty.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=4215"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/accordingtokirsty.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=4215"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}