She stared mindlessly out the window. What was she supposed to do now?

“Med rounds!” a shrill voice pierced the veil of distraction.

The nurse was a short, pudgy, pink-cheeked woman who made up for her homeliness with an uncomfortably cheerful disposition. She was the type of woman we have all known at some point in our lives. A mostly unnoticed coworker quietly eating her feelings between incoming calls, dreaming of the day she will finally be invited to the office happy hour at the local bar as she fishes another stashed chocolate bar out of her desk drawer.

“Everett! Michelle Everett!” the nurse squawked.

The nurse called Michelle’s name in a way that made her want to change it…immediately. Michelle hated everything about her – her cheery disposition, her lumbering, waddling walk, her scrubs with little puppies and kittens on them. She seemed to have a pair in every color. Michelle had no doubt it was her way of fishing for conversation that would ultimately lead to an uncomfortably long discussion surrounding the cute and cuddly world of Nurse puppykitten. Michelle knew her secret, though. Behind the false, if not passive-aggressive, kindness, the nurse was severely depressed. That vast “fur family” Nurse puppykitten had amassed was certainly going to feast on her when she inevitably perished alone, leaving nothing but a pile of bones and bloody scrubs with puppies and kittens on them.

And they thought she was crazy.