I woke in a hospital bed staring into the anxious faces of a medical team. Their obvious concern was alarming.

“What happened?” I said, struggling to sit up. The last thing I could remember was the disapproving glares coming my way at a dinner party. “What’s wrong?”

A young nurse smiled sympathetically as she gently pushed me down and smoothed the sheet over my chest. The middle-aged doctor with  the crooked teeth toyed with his stethoscope and refused to make eye contact.

“You’re in Emergency,” he said. “You need a transplant, immediately”

“What?”

He just stared at my chart. Instinctively I knew I couldn’t trust this quack; he’d never give me a straight answer, he was just looking to pay off his yacht. I looked at him coldly. “So what failed?”

“Your personality,” he said.

“My personality?”

“You need a personality transplant.”

“You mean like a witness protection thing?”

“That’s identity. I mean personality.”

The nurse did a little more smoothing then and I could see she wasn’t as young as I’d thought. And boy did she have an outsized caboose.

What had happened at the dinner? I recalled the scintillating wit sitting next to me telling me the same story at desert as I’d told him at soup, that’s when I asked the judgmental bitch across from me to pass the brandy;  she sent it off down the table. It was all I could remember.

“So, what’s wrong with my personality?” I asked the doctor. “You’re not so charming yourself.”

“Toxic intolerance,” he says, still eyeing the chart. “Excessive greed, high levels of self pity, severely inflamed critical opinions. It has to come out.”

“All of it? What about my rakish charm?”

“That too.”

“But my heart-felt compassion?”

“We didn’t find any.”

“My generosity?”

“Completely shot.”

“What about free will?”

“Frankly? It’s overrated, we even don’t track it anymore.”

“Jeez...Can’t I just get a touch-up?”

“This is not elective oil change,” the nurse put in with a malicious smirk. She was loving this.

“Hostile, cutting remarks,” The doctor went on reading. “Not suffering fools gladly, or anyone else for that matter.”

“So, what,” I said.

He ignored me, they all did, in that professional way they have. He was fiddling with the papers on his clipboard and muttering to the other flunkies at the end of the bed. “I’d like to shave more than a few points off this ego.”

Then he remembered me:

“We have a list of donors here,” he looked at me for the first time. “though finding a match might be difficult.” He started reading off a list of names: Stan G. – a kindly man, George M – a thoughtful, selfless person, Bill D. – a gentle, generous man.

“Who are these people?” I couldn’t resist, after all, they were going to be me. “Nobodies, no wonder they don’t have personality problems, they don’t have personalities. What did they ever

do to get upset about? Don’t you have anyone interesting there? There are plenty of so called ‘nice guys’ around.”

“Well, not to be too obvious, they’re still using their personalities.”

“They could share. No? See, there’s a flaw right there, selfish, won’t share.”

“Well, there is a list.” The doctor cleared his throat. “Certain people wanting to trade in their personality, but I wouldn’t recommend...frying pan into the fire sort of thing.”

“There’s old Harry in the terminal ward,” one of the flunkies put in. “He’s very sweet, well adjusted – about to...”

The nurse was already shaking her head before the doctor scowled. “I’m not sure this body could handle sweetness.

“Not Harry,” the nurse whispered. “Remember … his wife … never found her.”

And so the search began. Days turned to weeks as the hunt for a personality match dragged on. Do you know how many of the men who die in this country every day are short-tempered, selfish, irascible bastards? Those kindly mutts, smiling away behind their wives, or the well-meaning codgers repeating stories are really simmering volcanoes of resentment, anger and guilt. You wouldn’t believe how many sweethearts we looked at who turned out to be racists, homophobes, misogynists, xenophobes; they’d screwed their friends, cheated their wives, stolen, hated and lied themselves into denial. Being irritable ain’t easy.

And the days went by. I realized time was getting short when I noticed the nurse moved her chair every day – a little further from my bed.

I awoke at noon today from an overly long and deep sleep to find the same team of medics surrounded my bed. They were smiling today, happy to meet my eye. What a change.

“How do you feel?” The doctor asked, his manner completely transformed.

“Marvelous.” I said, and meant it.

“You look really well,” The pretty young nurse patted my pillow. I couldn’t help notice how much weight she’d lost, her curvaceous figure so comely.

“How’s the search going?” I asked.

They grinned at one another and shuffled their feet.

“Everything has gone extremely well,” the doctor beamed. “For the most part.”

“So, we don’t need a match after all? That’s wonderful.”

“You could say that,” he looked away. “But there was a slight hitch.”

“Oh, come on.” I could see they were uncomfortable, and did so want to put them at ease. “you’ve all been terrific.”

“In the course of the procedure,” he stammered, “Mistakes were made. We, er, we, sort of, took your leg off.”

“Oh, really,” I said. “But you didn’t mean to. It’s fine, really it is, don’t give it another thought.”