Janitor's Prank

Elliot was having a bad day. She was only a few days into her residency at Sacred Heart and she’d already lost 3 patients in 3 days. She had learned not to take these things to heart; she was a doctor; patients died all the time. As unfortunate as it was, **** was something she encountered frequently in her job.

However, Dr Cox’s belittling of her ability had been putting doubts in her mind recently. Elliot was thinking more and more that there was more that she could be doing for her patients, and that she was somehow sub-par to her peers. Like JD. As much as Cox seemed to hate him (though he had a general disliking of humanity as a whole), it was no secret JD was his favourite. Elliot had nothing but doubts about herself lately, and it was stressing her out.

“Guys, am I a failure?”

Everyone at the nurse’s station looked at the blonde, eyes wide and meek expressions on their face. Ok, maybe that wasn’t the best way to start a conversation, but Elliot hadn’t been getting much sleep lately, and her social skills never had been great.

“Elliot, of course you’re not a failure. You’re just having a rough few day. Every resident has them when they start out!” Leave it to Carla to come in clutch with the consoling. Despite her words, Elliot had doubts about their legitimacy.

“What about JD and Turk? We all started at the same time and they both seem fine!”

The pair in question looked back at her. Well, Turk did at least, JD it seemed was staring off into space, probably engrossed in one of his frequent daydreams. Turk stared at his best friend for a second before turning back to address the blonde.

“I just have more confidence in myself. Not hard with the meatheads I’m competing with.” Turk motioned to Todd standing at the other end of the nurses station, trying to balance a spoon on his nose, while his surgery patient looked on with horror in realisation that this is the man who would be cutting him open. Elliot had to concede, that was a good point.

“I have plenty of confidence in myself! Well… I usually do… Dr. Cox has really been making me doubt myself lately…” Elliot admitted to her friends, the blonde shifting nervously as she looked down at her feet. JD finally snapped out of his daydream at the mention of his mentor.

“Perry can be a little harsh sometimes, but he helps out people who are useful to him. I’ve been doing favours for him all week, and he’s only called me 1 girl name the whole time!” JD stated with an unrivalled excitement and just a tad smugness in his voice at his mentor’s newfound appreciation for him. Elliot realised that was it! If Dr Cox stopped insulting her, her confidence would go up! She had to make herself useful to him!

“I gotta go guys, I did Dr Cox’s dry cleaning, and need to give it to him before his shifts over.”

“Wait!” Elliot held her hands out to stop JD before he left, seeing her opportunity to fix her confidence issues. “Let me give it to him! This is just what I need!”

JD looked at his blonde co-worker sceptically, before looking off into the sky, Elliot looking on at him confused. Oh God, he was doing his ‘inner monologue’ again, wasn’t he? Why can’t he just do this on the move like a normal person? It was only a few seconds later, JD turned back to her, reaching into the pocket of his scrubs, and producing a key.

“You know what? Fine. I left it in my locker. You can have this one.” Elliot almost squealed with joy at her colleague’s permission, snatching the key from him and turning on her heels on the way to the locker room. JD probably had some grander scheme in mind, but she didn’t really care at this moment. She was finally going to make Dr Cox like her!

With a skip in her step, the blonde walked through the hallways of Sacred Heart, ignoring Dr Kelso yelling at Ted, and rejecting one of Todd’s advances along the way. Nothing was going to stop her in her mission. After only a few minutes she found herself in the locker room, flicking on the lights as she entered. No one was around, which she found rather strange, but she ignored this in her glee, as she approached JD’s locker. She inserted the key and turned it, hearing the latch click before pulling open the door…

… and being assaulted with a pile of dirt.

“Aw! Yuck!” Elliot coughed as the dirt got in her face. It fell from the locker, covering her scrubs and her shoes, the rest of it falling to the ground. Elliot looked in horror at the cursed locker, wondering what the hell had just happened.

“Aw damn, that was meant for Dorian… sorry…”

Elliot turned to find the Janitor standing in the doorway of the locker room, a less than pleased expression on his face. Elliot stared at the tall man with wide eyes, as the Janitor just seemed to shrug his shoulders. Elliot’s plan was ruined, and worse, now she needed a shower. She didn’t have time for this! Blowing her blonde hair out of her face, she stormed off, past the Janitor towards the direction of the showers.

“Should probably call the guys and tell them phase two’s off…” Janitor said, pulling his cell phone from his pocket and opening it, “Oops. Out of battery… Oh well…” And with that, he got his broom to clean the mess of his own making.