Doctor's Offices
Today I went to the doctor's office for a checkup. As usual when I go to the doctor's I worked the night before so I am tired, irritable, and feel like crap. On top of that, I always find visits to doctor's offices very irritating. Let me walk you through my appointment.
First, there is the paperwork that you have to fill out. I am a mostly healthy young man with very few unhealthy vices (ice cream is the worst). When I began going to his doctor, I had to fill out 10 pages of information. The worst part is, I had to hand-write it. Don't they know that I am a part of the computer-addicted, Playstation playing, spell-checker dependant Generation Y? Couldn't I have filled this form out on the Internet before coming in? Or maybe they could hand me a laptop as I walked in and showed me which templates I needed to fill out? "Those right there sir, and once you're finished, just hit 'print' and it will connect with the printer over our wireless network and print right at our billing desk." Nope, we're still in the Stone Age here.
What feels like five hours later as I fill out the last page I have a new medical problem to discuss with my new doctor- carpal tunnel symdrome. I make my way up to the counter past the young mother who is signing in her unruly toddler and I pass the clipboard over to the lady behind the desk who gives a forced smile and closes the glass before I have a chance to ask how long the wait will be.
Finally, I am able to sit back down and relax with a copy of Field & Stream and wait for my turn to be called back. I set the magazine in my lap so I can use my left hand to massage my cramped writing hand while I read all about the newest outdoor sporting goods equipment that I have nowhere near enough money to buy. I read the article about the South Carolina game warden who is known for wrestling catfish (called noodling); he is shown hugging a catfish that looks to be about three feet long. I don't find the wrestling part very impressive but I kind of think of it as a lame redneck version of "The Crocodile Hunter" (who I am going to miss), but it IS a big fish. As I sit there, embarrassed by this fellow South Caroliner's apparent lack of self respect, I can only hope that his hometown here in SC is far, far away from mine.
Then comes the second problem with doctor's offices. The above mentioned unruly toddler becomes enthralled with the red tag on the bottom of my shoe and begins picking at it while her mother sits 10 feet away and laughs at her. "That is so cute," Mom says. I give Rugrat a little smile and a "Hey there." She then proceeds to grab my leg and smack it while giving me a big "I get away with everything because my mother is not smart enough to understand that she needs to punish me" smile. then she makes the unforgivable mistake- she reaches for the Field & Stream. I'm tired, but I see it coming and I lift it just out of her reach. I am no longer smiling at her.
She soon tires of trying to reach it and decides to go bother the drug representative across the room. She waddles across to him in her bare feet with her sagging little diaper and proceeds to mash on the keys of his laptop while he tries to politely remove her grimy little paws from his computer and the legs of his expensive dress pants. Apparently somewhere between trying to steal a magazine and attempting to destroy a $1,200 computer little Rugrat crossed a line in her mother's rule book. Mom slowly gets up and walks over to retrieve her little delinquent.
She takes her back over and holds her in her lap, firmly instructing her little precious to "stay right here." This command obviously carries no weight with Rugrat as she starts squirming and then crying. Since Mom wants to be polite and knows that it is more polite for your child to destroy other people's electronics than to cry in a waiting room she allows her to get down and continue her reign of terror. This cycle is repeated 4-5 times. As Rugrat approaches my Field & Stream once again, I spot a coworker who just sat down across the room and hurry over to talk with him and escape further torture.
About 30 minutes later I am the last soul in the waiting room; Rugrat and Mom had finally been called back and I was able to settle down again with a copy of Outdoor, which contains articles about yet even more expensive products, including the $250 Oakley sunglasses with a built in Bluetooth headset. That's cool.
Finally I am called back. It has only been a mere hour and fifteen minutes but I feel like I have survived the second Hundred Years War. In spite of my near fatal dose of exhaustion, I have the foresight to bring my new magazine back. I learned long ago that the wait in the back can be just as long and the rooms are usually not as well stocked with reading material as the waiting room. I'm right; the only magazine in the room is Parenting which I am sooo not in the mood for.
Fortunately, the doctor comes in just as I finish Outdoor and within 10 minutes, he's done. Wait, I waited for THIS? Now I get to take a pulmonary function test which comprises of taking a deep breath and blowing into a tube as hard as you can. The hard part is that just as you are running out of air the nurse starts saying "keep going, keep going" and continues that until every last molecule of air has been exhaled and I'm coughing like an asthmatic smoker (I guess I am half of that anyways). Try this some time at a party as an ice breaker; it's a blast.
After all that, when I leave I get billed for everything. $80 for the exam (he asked me three questions), $30 for the pulmonary torture test, $500 for the month's rent in the waiting room, and $5 to re-route my mail back to my house once I return home. Wait, I have to PAY for this?!?!?
The bright side of the whole trip was that on the way home I stopped at Home Depot and picked up a router and bit set that my parents had bought for me for my birthday. That, and Carina racing to see me when I got home, made me feel much better.
Sadly, the only part of this story that I exaggerated at all was the billing and the paperwork. The kid really was that bad. What is this world coming to?
First, there is the paperwork that you have to fill out. I am a mostly healthy young man with very few unhealthy vices (ice cream is the worst). When I began going to his doctor, I had to fill out 10 pages of information. The worst part is, I had to hand-write it. Don't they know that I am a part of the computer-addicted, Playstation playing, spell-checker dependant Generation Y? Couldn't I have filled this form out on the Internet before coming in? Or maybe they could hand me a laptop as I walked in and showed me which templates I needed to fill out? "Those right there sir, and once you're finished, just hit 'print' and it will connect with the printer over our wireless network and print right at our billing desk." Nope, we're still in the Stone Age here.
What feels like five hours later as I fill out the last page I have a new medical problem to discuss with my new doctor- carpal tunnel symdrome. I make my way up to the counter past the young mother who is signing in her unruly toddler and I pass the clipboard over to the lady behind the desk who gives a forced smile and closes the glass before I have a chance to ask how long the wait will be.
Finally, I am able to sit back down and relax with a copy of Field & Stream and wait for my turn to be called back. I set the magazine in my lap so I can use my left hand to massage my cramped writing hand while I read all about the newest outdoor sporting goods equipment that I have nowhere near enough money to buy. I read the article about the South Carolina game warden who is known for wrestling catfish (called noodling); he is shown hugging a catfish that looks to be about three feet long. I don't find the wrestling part very impressive but I kind of think of it as a lame redneck version of "The Crocodile Hunter" (who I am going to miss), but it IS a big fish. As I sit there, embarrassed by this fellow South Caroliner's apparent lack of self respect, I can only hope that his hometown here in SC is far, far away from mine.
Then comes the second problem with doctor's offices. The above mentioned unruly toddler becomes enthralled with the red tag on the bottom of my shoe and begins picking at it while her mother sits 10 feet away and laughs at her. "That is so cute," Mom says. I give Rugrat a little smile and a "Hey there." She then proceeds to grab my leg and smack it while giving me a big "I get away with everything because my mother is not smart enough to understand that she needs to punish me" smile. then she makes the unforgivable mistake- she reaches for the Field & Stream. I'm tired, but I see it coming and I lift it just out of her reach. I am no longer smiling at her.
She soon tires of trying to reach it and decides to go bother the drug representative across the room. She waddles across to him in her bare feet with her sagging little diaper and proceeds to mash on the keys of his laptop while he tries to politely remove her grimy little paws from his computer and the legs of his expensive dress pants. Apparently somewhere between trying to steal a magazine and attempting to destroy a $1,200 computer little Rugrat crossed a line in her mother's rule book. Mom slowly gets up and walks over to retrieve her little delinquent.
She takes her back over and holds her in her lap, firmly instructing her little precious to "stay right here." This command obviously carries no weight with Rugrat as she starts squirming and then crying. Since Mom wants to be polite and knows that it is more polite for your child to destroy other people's electronics than to cry in a waiting room she allows her to get down and continue her reign of terror. This cycle is repeated 4-5 times. As Rugrat approaches my Field & Stream once again, I spot a coworker who just sat down across the room and hurry over to talk with him and escape further torture.
About 30 minutes later I am the last soul in the waiting room; Rugrat and Mom had finally been called back and I was able to settle down again with a copy of Outdoor, which contains articles about yet even more expensive products, including the $250 Oakley sunglasses with a built in Bluetooth headset. That's cool.
Finally I am called back. It has only been a mere hour and fifteen minutes but I feel like I have survived the second Hundred Years War. In spite of my near fatal dose of exhaustion, I have the foresight to bring my new magazine back. I learned long ago that the wait in the back can be just as long and the rooms are usually not as well stocked with reading material as the waiting room. I'm right; the only magazine in the room is Parenting which I am sooo not in the mood for.
Fortunately, the doctor comes in just as I finish Outdoor and within 10 minutes, he's done. Wait, I waited for THIS? Now I get to take a pulmonary function test which comprises of taking a deep breath and blowing into a tube as hard as you can. The hard part is that just as you are running out of air the nurse starts saying "keep going, keep going" and continues that until every last molecule of air has been exhaled and I'm coughing like an asthmatic smoker (I guess I am half of that anyways). Try this some time at a party as an ice breaker; it's a blast.
After all that, when I leave I get billed for everything. $80 for the exam (he asked me three questions), $30 for the pulmonary torture test, $500 for the month's rent in the waiting room, and $5 to re-route my mail back to my house once I return home. Wait, I have to PAY for this?!?!?
The bright side of the whole trip was that on the way home I stopped at Home Depot and picked up a router and bit set that my parents had bought for me for my birthday. That, and Carina racing to see me when I got home, made me feel much better.
Sadly, the only part of this story that I exaggerated at all was the billing and the paperwork. The kid really was that bad. What is this world coming to?
posted by Bobby Wales at
7:41 PM
5 Comments
