You Know You're A Nurse When...

1. The front of your scrubs reads "Nurses... here to save your ass, not kiss it!"
2. You occasionally park in the space with the 'physicians only' sign... and knock it over.
3. You can identify whether the patient has an impaction, tube feeding or infection based on the smell of their poop.
4. The ER is a mixture of can do, can’t do, and why the hell not!
5. You recognize that you can't cure stupid.
6. You own at least three pens with the names of prescription medications on them.
7. You believe there's a special place for the inventor of the call light.
8. You believe that saying 'it can't get any worse' causes it to get worse just to show you it can.
9. You wash your hands BEFORE you go to the bathroom.
10. You consider a tongue depressor an eating utensil.
11. Eating microwave popcorn out of a clean bedpan is perfectly natural.
12. You've been exposed to so many x-rays that you consider it a form of birth control.
13. You've ever heard a patient with a nose ring, a brow ring, and twelve earrings say "I'm afraid of shots."
14. You've ever placed a bet on someones blood alcohol level.
15. You have steel wool in your bathroom or other form of high grade scrubber to shower with after work.
16. Your bladder can expand to the size of a Winnebago's water tank.
17. You have seen more penises than any prostitute could dream of.
18. You believe that not all patients are annoying... some are unconscious.
19. Your family and friends refuse to watch medical sitcoms with you because you spend the whole time correcting everyone and pointing out upside down x-rays.
20. You don't get excited about blood, unless it's your own.
21. You've sworn to have "do not resuscitate" tattooed on your chest. Soon.
22. Discussing dismemberment over a gourmet meal is perfectly normal to you.
23. Your idea of fine dining is anywhere you can sit down to eat.
24. Your idea of a good time is a cardiac arrest at shift change.
25. You believe that "shallow gene pool" should be a recognized diagnosis.
26. You see reasons for attitude and mood in people based on their blood glucose
27. You believe that unspeakable evils will befall anyone who utters the phrase "Wow, it's really quiet, isn't it?"
28. You have ever wanted to write a book entitled "Suicide: getting it right the first time."
29. You have ever had a patient look you straight in the eye and say "I have no idea how that got stuck in there."
30. You've had to leave a patients room before you begin to laugh uncontrollably.
31. The phrase measure twice cut once refers to medication administration and the O.R.
32. The disoriented patient always comes from a nursing home whose beautiful paperwork has no phone number on it.
33. Your nose will itch the very moment your gloved hands get contaminated with bodily fluids.
34. You always remember "just one more thing" you need after you've gowned, gloved, and masked and gone into that isolation room.
35. When you cancel extra staff because it's so quiet, you are guaranteed a rash of admissions.
36. You'll jump out of planes, play with fire, dance around like a kid... because you know life is short
37. Everyone wants to hear your stories after you get off of work..even if it involves blood sucking leeches and the number of maggots you counted removing them from some homeless mans ears
38. You write your own prescriptions because the doctors trust you and know you spend more time looking and smelling the patients UTI's then they do.
39. You know 40 words for gauze.
40. You look at the veins of people in grocery store lines in front of you.
41. People that know your a nurse ask you to look at the sputum they just coughed up..their kid just coughed up.. their neighbor... while getting the mail.
42. You know 101 ways to say "hole" in Latin.
43. You have pads of alcohol prep floating around the house from leftovers brought home in your pockets.
44. Your sense of humor seems to get more "warped" each year
45. You believe every patient needs TLC: Thorazine, Lorazepam and Compazine
46. You can only tell time with a 24 hour clock
47. Almost everything can seem humorous ... eventually
48. You want to put your foot through the TV screen every time you see a nurse on a soap opera doing nothing but talking on the phone and flirting with doctors.
49. Your favorite dream is the one where you leave a mess at a patients bedside and tell a doctor to clean it up.
50. You have ever had a patient say, "but I'm not pregnant, i can't be pregnant, how can i be having a baby?"
51. You refer to motorcyclists as "organ donors."
52. You're uncomfortable in clothes that don't have elastic or drawstring waistbands, because you spend most of your waking hours in scrubs.
53. You are the only one at the dinner table NOT allowed to talk about your day at work.