Hospital food = no fun

Last month I spent a few nights in the hospital. It was a very nice hospital, and I was there by choice. In fact, I was getting paid to be there as part of a study. I had never spent a night in a hospital before. Now I have spent three nights in one. Three very freaky, very long nights. I kept thinking of those lines from "The Ballad of Reading Gaol":
...each day is like a year / a year whose days are long.

The food was as bad as people always say it is. The frequent proximity of my cafeteria tray to assorted blood collection paraphernalia did not help my appetite, but there was nowhere else for all that stuff to go. The rooms are small.

During my stay, only one yummy offering appeared: a perfect cupcake topped with a cheery swirl of vanilla buttercream. I know not from whence it came, but it did not last long. I'm pretty sure Oscar Wilde didn't get cupcakes in prison. Or burritos. The morning that I was released, Randy drove me directly to a super taqueria and I ate an enormous chorizo and egg burrito and drank a giant glass of fresh-squeezed orange juice. I think everyone in the hospital, even those there by choice, should have access to burritos and cupcakes at all times. Unless they are in the gastroenterology wing.