Patios by Daddio

Mr. Daddio was going into St Peters Hospital to have a double hernia. Apparently from all the hard labor he did being a brick layer and what I’d call a woodsman he developed these muscle knots over the years. I heard him complain about the one for a while but it wasn’t until he got the second one he decided to do anything about it. I was a close friend of the family particularly Ralph and Tony, Mr. Daddio’s older sons. I was about 21 at the time so Mr. Daddio must have been around 50.

Ironically my girlfriend’s mother, Connie, was going into the same hospital at the same time for a hysterectomy. Toni had met Connie previously at my parent’s house. My girlfriend, April, and I took Connie to the hospital for the procedure. While we were waiting for her to have the procedure we went to visit Mr. Daddio. We were wandering the halls of St Peters looking for Mr. Daddio’s room when we smelled a distinct odor coming from one of the rooms. We knocked on the door and Ralph slowly opened it to see who it was. After seeing it was only April and I he let us into the den of iniquity. Tony, Ralph and two of the floor nurses were in the room smoking some weed. Smoking weed in their dad’s room who would have believed it. So naturally we joined them. What seemed to be hours later Mr. Daddio was wheeled into his room still a little groggy. The nurse told us everything went just fine but she did inform us the surgeon insisted that Tony be knocked out even though he elected not to be put under anesthesia as he wanted to watch them perform the procedure. She said he was arguing with the doctor that he had drawn the incision lines about a half an inch too low. Mr. Daddio informed the physician that he was a core man in the service during WWII and had assisted with many operations and he knew what he was talking about. Apparently the physician had enough of his nonsense and told the anesthesiologist to knock him out!

In the next few minutes Mr. Daddio regained his consciousness and began speaking clearly. He told the nurse he was thirsty so she brought him some apple juice. He took only a sip and let it sit there. He let us know he was a little upset with the surgeon for knocking him out. A different nurse then came in and asked Mr. Daddio for a urine sample which he replied this wasn’t a good time and could she come back. She said that was fine and she left a cup for him to urinate in.

April and I left to go check on her mother and she was just coming out of recovery and put into her room. We greeted at the room and she seemed to be less groggy then Mr. Daddio. She was very vocal and annoyed that she didn’t get any rest in the recovery room as all she could hear was this deep voice repeating, “Patios by Daddio, Patios by Daddio.” She said it woke her up and she turned to see where it was coming from and she saw the “nose” and knew who it was. Mr. Daddio has a very prominent nose. She insisted she didn’t get any rest until they took him away and that she wasn’t the only person in recovery complaining.

I left April to visit with her mom and headed toward the Mr. Daddio’s room on another floor. As I got off the elevator and started down the wing towards his room I heard the nurse running down the hall screaming, “ he’s nuts, he’s insane, oh my god.” Something told me she was referring to Mr. Daddio. As I arrived in Mr. Daddio’s room all I could hear is laughter although it hurt Mr. Daddio to laugh so he had to control himself which was not an easy task. Ralph and Tony could hardly tell me what happened because they were laughing so hard. Finally Ralph got it together and told me the nurse came in for his urine sample and he grabbed the cup she had given him earlier except it had only a very small sample in it. She said she’d come back later and hopefully he had more of a sample. Mr. Daddio grabbed the cup and drank it like you’d do a shot. He offered that “I’ll run it through another time maybe that will help.” The nurse almost lost her cookies and took off down the hall. Little did she know he staged the entire incident as he had filled the cup with the apple juice he had gotten earlier? Daddio humor it’s a pisser!