There Ain't No Devil, It's Just God When He's Drunk

I hope that I'm not the only one who gets lost for words around certain people in certain situations- like the one I am guaranteed to face at least once a day (if not more).

For instance- how do you tell an old man in a wheelchair to please take a seat? At the hospital, after I check the patients in, I ask them to have a seat until the nurse arrives to collect them. But it sounds so strange to say it to someone who is already in a seat. They obviously can't take one because they are affixed to one! So what do you say?

A lot of the time, they are also deaf, drooling, or in a state of suspended animation.

Then there are the ones who come in from lord knows where all wrapped up on a hospital bed. I personally can't think of anything more embarrassing. I mean, let's say you're old and need to get a camera shoved up your butt..for fun. There isn't anything I would rather do than enter the Day Bed Suite on a gurney, being pulled along like lost luggage by the ambulance officers, all the while having everyone else in the reception room stare at the drool puddling from the corner of my mouth because my arms are strapped to my side for safety. I mean, there is a back entrance that would save the poor guy the trouble of being thrown about in front of everyone else.

But no, the ambulance dudes just drop him off with me...and now what the hell do I do with him? Tell him to take a seat? Wheel him into a corner and try to hide him behind the plant? Leave him in the middle of the room to be gawked at like an artefact in the museum?

I can't help but think that the UK is a little more PC crazy than the US...so what do you do?

If you're me, hide and hope a nurse will fix things with her magic wand.