Hospital survival skills

It's not easy being in the hospital. I'm a nurse, and at various times, I've found it sad, frustrating, comical, boring and even exciting, but never easy. The moment one walks through those doors, one gets that, well, "hospital feeling". And that's just if you're visiting. Now if you're entering by wheelchair or stretcher, it's another story entirely. As a veteran of hospitals, I'm here to give you a few tips on surviving the experience.
1) Be a male. Actually, a young, heterosexual male is best. I once spent 3 weeks in the hospital without discovering that they had juice on the floor. My male friend was there for 2 days and by the end of his first afternoon, he had, at his bedside, 6 juices, 2 ginger ales, 2 puddings, a jello, a newspaper and 2 young nurses.
2) Do not expose yourself. There's nothing we nurses haven't seen before and you don't want to scare the pink ladies. Or make them point and laugh.
3) Do not use the call bell to ask the nurse to "Make me comfortable." She doesn't know what will make you comfortable (at least not anything legal), and if she did, she'd be a psychic, not a nurse.
4) If you've called and called again, and no one has answered your call bell, then, and only then, for pure attention-getting value, it is acceptable to walk out to the nurses station naked (or half-naked if it's cold or you're, um... fat).
5) Do not pull a tube out. Nothing makes a nurse testier than pulled-out tubes. However, if you have a nurse who is especially unpleasant and you don't mind getting the tube put back in, go ahead - pull out the fucking tube.
6) Do not tell the staff that you don't need a bath. They'll send in Heavy Hilda or Hefty Hank, and you'll get a bed bath you'll never forget.
7) Do not say "My mother's a nurse" or "My father's a lawyer". Many medical professionals feel very uncomfortable when hearing either of these two phrases, and although they may shower you with attention, they may also avoid your room like the plague.
8) If you need to throw up, aim for the small, kidney-shaped thing, or at least the round, wastebasket-shaped thing and not the large, floor-shaped thing.
9) Do not smoke pot in your room and try to say it's incense. Remember, your nurse went to school on a college campus and probably has a pretty intimate knowledge of what it smells like.
10) Do use "Nurse Bait". A jar of candy, a box of chocolates, pizza, or anything else classified as food will almost instantly create a flow of nurses into your room. Hungry, grateful nurses.
11) If a nurse tells you that she just does not understand why people keep critisizing that nice President Bush, and that really, those kind of people should be immediately deported, and while she's saying this, she's holding a rectal thermometer or a huge syringe, it's OK to say you couldn't agree with her more.
12) Get well.