Jumping to Conclusions

Jumping to conclusions has landed me in trouble on many occasions.

A few days ago, I woke up in the morning to find my sister in a breathless state. She told me she was cleaning the bathroom with a floor cleaner. Our bathroom has no proper ventilation. Sister thought her respiratory distress was owing to the toxic vapours of the floor cleaner.

I felt panicked because sister also suffers from a heart ailment.

I took her to the neighborhood physician, who assured us it was nothing serious. But the physician advised me to take sister to a hospital because she suffered from a heart ailment.

"They will only keep her under observation for an hour or two," the physician said.

There was no large hospital nearby, so I took my sister to a small nursing home at the physician's suggestion.

The doctor at the nursing home said my sister would have to stay overnight. After her condition stabilized, I left for home to bring her food.

After a few hours, I prepared the lunch box and started for the nursing home on my motorcycle. I was very near the nursing home when an auto-rickshaw driver brought his vehicle near me. He stuck his head out and wanted to know the directions to some place. I am short of hearing; moreover, there was a lot of traffic noise. I could not catch what he was saying.

I happened to glance at the passenger seat and saw my sister.

"Have they discharged you?" I asked her. She said something, but I could not hear.

"She is my sister," I told the rickshaw driver.

I felt sure that the rickshaw driver had asked me for directions to the part of the city where I lived.

My sister has mobility problems, and she cannot ride pillion on a motorcycle.

"Follow me," I told the auto-rickshaw driver.

I turned back and rode two miles to my home. When I reached home, my sister refused to climb out of the auto.

"What's the matter?"

"I have not been discharged. The doctor asked me to get some diagnostic tests done from a diagnostic centre in the vicinity. I was returning to the nursing home in the auto-rickshaw."

It turned out that the auto-rickshaw driver was not aware where the nursing home was situated. My sister had seen me and told the driver to follow me. The driver had come up to me to ask for directions to the nursing home. They were very close to the nursing home. So, I had assumed my sister had been discharged and was going home in the rickshaw.

I went back to the nursing home with the auto-rickshaw following behind. We ended up paying four-five times more than what the fare should have been.

My sister had to stay another day in the nursing home before she was discharged.