It was a bad morning to have an eight o'clock doctor appointment. Strike that -
any day is a bad day to have an eight o'clock doctor appointment. The only thing worse than an eight o'clock doctor appointment ....
Is getting out of the elevator to find
twelve people sitting on the floor in front of the locked office.
I learned things this morning.
Things like this might be another of the doctor's `emergencies', as this isn't the first time a crowd had assembled outside. In fact, I understand they're thinking about putting chairs in the hallway.
People bond over the weirdest stuff... it's amazing what people will say to each other in a hallway, never having met before. You'd think you were on Faceyspaces or something....
One fellow used to be in the navy. I'm not sure what the relevance is to this bit of information but he was fond of starting his sentences with `Well, I was in the navy for twenty years and...'
Another lady regaled us with tales of conspicuous consumption. Of diet soda.
A teen held forth on the topic of nerdiness and how she was purposely going for the nerd look by wearing fake glasses. Quite frankly, I spent the early part of my life trying to get
away from the nerd look, so I sat there in mute horror. Do you suppose Claudia Schiffer ever turned to her agent and said she needed some thick glasses with that bikini? Did Adriana Lima storm off the Victoria's Secret shoot and state her intention to trade her push-up bra for a pocket protector?
The mind boggles.
An attractive and very sympathetic young lady kept reminding me that it was not nice (nor was it legal) to do most of the things I was suggesting to the doctor, should he ever arrive.
Speaking of arrival, one guy asked me what time my appointment was
(eight o'clock). Sudden realization hit me when he mentioned having been there since just after six. At about this point, the entire assemblage stood up, signed their names to a piece of paper, shoved it in the mail slot and left.
It was the finest Synchronized Leaving Event<tm> I have ever witnessed and it did my heart good to be part of it.
Apparently they didn't lift my prints from the note, as the office called me later. Funny how they managed to find my number a few hours later, as opposed to some time before all of my new friends had time to assemble in the hallway... Yes, it was an emergency, plus some nonsense about somebody dying. I don't believe a word, especially about the emergency, plus it takes huevos grandes to lie about a death in the family.
My wife says it sounds like he drinks. That's a rather odd thing to say out of the blue, but then again,
she's not the average wife.
What, you ask, is the moral of this story?
- Don't take any grief from doctors (but be nice to their staff)
- Demand to be paid for your time
- If you're going to have sex with a fellow patient, make sure you're protected.
