Osmolality, or How I Kept My Cool

Patient X has Q6 osmo's and sodiums. He's in the SICU, and I don't know/care what else he has. All I know is that during the night, the ICU nurses have ordered Q2 Osmo's and Na's. But they don't want them. Rather than simply cancelling the order in the computer, they simply turn us away all night long. No biggie since I'm asleep at home when this is happpening.
Change of shift in the lab. I get report that the ICU has been carrying on like this, but that they finally cancelled the Q2 orders. Patient X has a 0600 Basic Metabolic Panel which has included in it a sodium level. We do this, but for some reason the 0600 Osmo and sodium were cancelled along with the Q2 orders. Since the nursing staff now wants the tests Q6 at 0600, 1200, and so on, we need to reorder the osmo which we do. By the time we get to the floor to do a slightly late 600 osmolality, Mr. X has gone to CT. The nurse irately explains to the phleb that they don't want osmos except at 0600 and 1200. Wisely the phleb deflects the spittle from yonder moronicus giganticus. He hops on the phone and yells at me, 'Osmo's? We don't need no stinkin osmo's", well he would have if I'd been Gene Wilder in Blazing Saddles. He actually berated me for sending someone up.
I tried explaining that we were actually trying to perform his precious 0600 Osmo, but that the patient had been in CT. Since it was 0715, and the patient had returned, I felt it requisite to draw the blood as ordered. He stammered incoherently and tried to make me understand, using his best patronizing tone, that he only wanted them at 0600 and 1200. Yes, massah I replied. I then reached into the phone, and dug my finger into Nurse Moronicus' ear. Feeling the wrath of the lab, he backed off, and apologized. I told him that we were doing the best we could to comply with their orders, and that if he wanted an 0600 osmo, he would have to let us draw it. If not, we'd be more than happy to cancel it. My cool, impassive mien and unflappable Harrison Ford voice let him know who really was in charge. He might be all bluster, but Cool Hand Lab Man wasn't takin' no crap from nobody, nohow.

editor's note: In the interests of factual accuracy, Lab Man was in fact exquisitely polite, did not physically harm the nurse, and the situation resolved itself peacefully. Had it not been so, there would have been a Wild West showdown in the halls behind SICU. We all know who would have drawn his pearl handled six shooter fastest too.....