Dateline: Monday May 03
Situation: Phone call to make doctor appointment
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(ring ring)
Medical Appointment Lady: Hello, "Healthcare Office"
Me: I need to make an appointment with Dr. O.
(information is exchanged)
MAL: What's the purpose for the appointment?
Me: I'm going to the beach at the end of the month and want the doctor to look at my back because last year he saw something he didn't like and froze it.
MAL: Is there something on your back?
Me: I don't know. It's my back. I can't see my back.
MAL: So there's not a particular thing on your back you need the doctor to see?
Me: I don't know. I can't see my back. It's my back.
MAL: Well there's a 9:00 a.m...
Me: Oh! I don't do mornings. Besides, last time you guys said he only does skin things at the end of the day.
MAL: That's if he has to remove something. Is there something he has to remove?
Me: I have no idea. Because it's my back and I can't see my back. That's why I want the doctor to look at it. But he froze something last time.
MAL: Well, if he has to remove something I can't make that appointment. I can connect you to his nurse. She makes those appointments. But she will ask you if you have something that needs to be removed.
Me: How do I know? It's my back. I can't see my back. That's why I want the doctor to look at it. Can you just make an afternoon regular appointment for him to look at my back?
MAL: Okay.
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Dateline: Tuesday May 04
Situation: Dental Cleaning
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(About 15 minutes into the cleaning the Dental Hygienist switches to some high pitched drill-sounding contraption. After about 5 minutes she pauses.)
Dental Hygienist: How are you? Are you okay?
Me: No. I hate that thing.
DH: Oh. Well I can go back to the scraper but this is faster.
(she starts doing something over there)
Me: I hate that thing too. Just do this then if it's faster.
DH: Oh.
Me: I'm at the dentist's office. You asked how I was. I'm not going to lie and say "Fine." I hate all of it. Just do the one that's fastest.
DH: Oh. Okay.
(She finishes with that and then says she will be right back to do one more thing because I have some stains on the back of my teeth from smoking. She then proceeds to to sand the gums at the inside top of my two front teeth to mush.)
Me: Ow! That was horrible. My gums hurt. I feel like I ate three bowls of Captain Crunch.
DH: Oh! I have something for that.
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So then I had to swish some foul tasting poison in my mouth for a whole minute. It did take the pain away. But it's the first time I ever left the dentist with worse breath than when I arrived. Poison and latex glove breath. I went straight to a bar and drank four beers. All better.
I bet those people hate me.
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7 comments:
Ugh... Don't get my started on DHs. Their sole purpose in life is to annoy me. They go into the damn profession cause someone has told them, if you do this job, you can annoy Jazz copiously every six months...
As I always say, four beers will cure anything. That phone call sounds Kafkaesque to me. It's fuck'n surreal! We also have to deal with such an "individual" when making appointments with our family doc (sigh). The good part of course is the beer that follows :-)
You're setting those people on their heels with honesty. It's good for them.
Re: your comment on my divorce post, the ex-wife HAS been too passive for years (the same way men need to be taught to be husbands, women need to be taught to be assertive--and in many cases, to stop being martyrs) and should have left him years ago. She's been working up to the divorce since we moved here more than five years ago, trying be sure she'd done what she could to salvage things, trying to stash a bit of money (didn't work). With all my friends who have gotten divorced, we can see in retrospect that the divorce actually took five years or more.
However, this neighbor lady shoulda dumped his ass about a decade ago, for sure.
I guess you don't need to have a sense of humour to be a medical receptionist or a dental hygienist
Boy that conversation with the medical office sounds like something out of an Abbott and Costello movie. You know like the "Who's on first" skit... ;o)
Jazz,
~~Apparently they don't like people who tell it like it is.
Mr. Jazz,
~~Yes. I have discovered that beer will cure anything.
Jocelyn,
~~You are right. They do not expect honesty.
Xup,
~~Or just about anyone else that deals with the public. And those people all should have one.
Big Brother,
~~I just wondered how her neck works because she couldn't seem to grasp the concept that I can't see my own back.
Captain Crunch is a cereal killer!!!
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