This Way and That

Hello, there. Bet you didn't expect to see me on a Friday, did you? I didn't either, to be honest, but I had an experience today that sent me to the old blogging board for a story.

See, I finally broke down and went to the doctor today. As you know, I've had The Crud since Christmas Day. It came on with a flourish, and I was hoping it would leave the same way, but that wasn't the case. Instead it limped slowly away, I walked around fortified with 10 or 15% Crud, then it started taking me over again. I cough, I wheeze, and then I began to sneeze as well, and finally gave in.

And so it was off to good old Smokin' Dr Javier, to the not-as-nice examining room #2, the one with the picture called "The Doctor" that I've blogged about before. A doctor (played for this painting by US Grant) sitting vigil over a sick little girl while her parents (father played by John Cusack for this painting) look on.

I went there predicting four eye-rolls from SDJ. He always rolls his eyes at me at some point during a visit, and I hadn't been there in a while, so I figured I could say all kinds of things that would wind him up. Turns out I only said one, which was that early on in The Crud I took some spare antibiotics that were laying around after I stopped taking them this summer when I almost cut off the tip of my finger with the electric hedge clippers.

So I way overestimated the eye-rolls, but I got something better, something worth a good three eye-rolls in the SDJ world. One listen to my chest and he exclaimed, "Jesus H Christ!"

He then dispatched me for a blood count and chest x-ray forthwith, but not without loading me up with about $150 worth of free antibiotics. The ones he wanted me on were apparently the Super Duper For People About To Leave This World kind, and when he found out I didn't have a prescription card he went off looking for samples. Came back with a 10-day supply, and that is one of the reasons I like Smokin' Dr Javier.

He sent me to a place I'd not been to before for the bloodletting, and a place I'd been to a few times for the x-ray. And in that little round of traveling, I discovered something. That if you run a business or provide a service, there is an absolutely perfect way to do things, and an absolutely perfect way to bollocks every thing up.

I pulled into the little medical center for the blood test first. Up close it looked like a seedy hotel. A row of dark brown metal doors leading into dark offices with little window space. I pushed open my door, and saw behind it a bright clean office. It was empty.

The lady behind the window took my paperwork, said, "Yes, come right back this way." I took off my coat, sat down, got poked, put on my coat, and left. I couldn't have been in there more than four minutes. She was cheery, made conversation while she was sticking me, and wished me well as I walked out the door.

"Well, this might not be as bad as I thought," I said aloud backing the podmobile2 out of the parking lot. Then I headed to the x-ray place.

I walked in and there were about four other people in the large waiting room. People in lab coats were milling around. I went to the window, signed in, and waited. I got called back to the window, where I handed the woman my paperwork.

"You're here for a chest x-ray?" she asked with a snurled-up nose. (I came to find that this was her constant expression, nose rolled up like a window shade.) And though I wanted to say, "Is that what the paper says, lady?" I didn't, because I'm nice, I just said, "Yes."

She sighed and snurled a bit more. "Well, they have several people ahead of you, you're looking at a wait of an hour or an hour and a half." I stood there. I mean, what was I supposed to do? Say, "OK, I didn't want this anyway" and leave? I asked her what time it was for lack of anything better to say.

She asked me if I had any other places to go and then come back in that 90 minutes, and I started toying with the idea of going back to work for a half-hour or so, and was smart or stupid enough to ask, "So if I leave and come back I won't lose my place in line?"

She looked at me as if to say, "God, you idiot," then said, "Oh, yes, you'll lose your place in line."

I really haven't been feeling good lately and the look I gave her almost unsnurled her nose, and I said, "Well, then I have to wait, don't I?" And I went and sat down.

I'd brought along a Games Magazine for such an occasion, and started in on it. It wasn't 20 minutes before they called me back, and I just started to seethe. That woman was trying to get rid of me! She was trying to discourage me from using my God-given right to get an x-ray. I kept thinking it was around lunchtime, and she was probably given the job of Cleaner, the person to weed out people so everyone could get a timely lunch hour.

Anyway, I got my x-ray and got back to work.

But it bugs me when people act like it's such a chore to do their damn jobs.

Oh, and by the way, while being checked in, Ms Nose mentioned it was almost a year since I'd been there for my last x-ray. March 9, 2009.

And I just didn't have the heart to yell, "Yes, March 9, 2009. Know when I got the bill for that x-ray? February 10, 2010!" But I wanted to.

Apparently the billing department all sits around with snurled-up noses too.

Betland's Olympic Update:
* Hey - we actually have some Olympics! Opening ceremonies tonight, after the very sad news that a luger lost his life on a training run today. That's a very bad way to begin an Olympics. RIP, Mr Luge Person.