So, I’m fully aware that my blogs are mostly for me….with a few close friends who read, follow, and give me an occasional pat on the back when they like something I’ve amateurishly written. But yesterday I noticed that I have a follower in Australia. Australia!!! I am hot stuff now! No doubt some bloke clicked the wrong button at some point, but STILL! Check that crap out! Australia! Nonetheless, I mostly blog to vent my feelings about something that has irked me, amazed me, or blown my mind. Today, my topic is Idiots. I choose to capitalize the word for aesthetic purposes…NOT because the idiots deserve a proper title.
I’m feel compelled to share an Idiot story from this morning. So, to begin….I’ve had a head cold for about nine days. Just gross. I actually crafted a necklace from a tissue box and wore it around the house yesterday. I was especially sad that I had this cold during the huge snowstorm that we just experienced here in Georgia. After closing school early on Wednesday, then cancelling the full day on Friday, we all sat around and waited for the snow to grace our yards. After much excitement and expectation, late Friday afternoon, we finally got it. Two whole inches. With my tissues in hand and my face fully coated in Vicks Vapor Rub, I joined the family in crafting a nice, nice snowman. He stood a proud nine inches tall. That was all I could handle, so I took my sneezing self back in the house and sat by the window, waiting for the second round of snow that never came.
But I reckon I digress….back to the Idiots. Idiot Number One enters early this morning. I woke up around 2:00 am last night with an excruciating pain in my left ear. I know “excruciating” is a strong word….but it’s my ear, and let me tell you, it was just awful. I knew something was wrong. I never did go back to sleep, and by 7:00 am I had decided that I needed to see a doctor. I remember one of the worst cries I’ve ever seen my child cry was when she had a horrible ear ache. The 20 minute drive from our home to her pediatrician was the longest ride of our lives. The poor baby was in torture. There’s something about that inner ear pain that compares to nothing else. And I’m not anything to brag about when it comes to pain tolerance. On a scale of 1 to 10, I’d give myself like a six. I knew if my ear got much worse, it was going to be a “wake the husband up and throw the kid in the car cause everybody’s gotta take Mamma to the Quick Care cause she’s in too much pain to drive” moment. And nobody wanted that. So, I arrive at the Immediate Care facility at 7:50. I like to be an early bird….which I can only do when I’m by myself. If I have husband and kid in tow, forget about it. I had ten minutes to wait until they opened. I parked in the front spot, left the car running in the 24 degree weather, and did what every other American woman would have done during the ten minute wait. I checked Facebook on my phone. I’m sitting there looking at a funny cat meme posted by a friend, and another car pulls up beside me. I’m immediately disturbed by this. The entire parking lot is empty, and they choose to park beside me. But that doesn’t even give them the title of Idiot Number One. Just Annoying Person.
Idiot Number One actually came into play within sixty seconds of Annoying Person’s park job. He pulled up through the drop off area of the facility, put his car in park, got out and walked up to the still-locked doors. It was 7:58 am at this point. The Idiot was wearing a t-shirt with ripped off sleeves. Like he had made him a nice, nice home made tank top. Remember now, it was freaking 24 degrees outside. He banged on the door of the facility, screaming “It’s eight o’clock! Y’all ain’t open yet?” He repeated this phrase at least four times, ended with a mouthful of curse words, got back in his car, lit a cigarette, and sped away so fast he burned rubber….. leaving black skid marks on the ground. So, if Idiot Number One had been experiencing a true emergency, I don’t think he would have taken time for the cig. And I’m assuming that he lost his watch, or other means of telling time, when he lost his coat and all his shirts with sleeves. Right as he left those skid marks, the employee came to unlock the doors for what we would be her first two patients of the day–me and the close-parker.
Once inside, the nurse took me right back to a room where I told her of my ailments, and unfortunately, get on the scale. I really wish we could strip naked for that part….but I guess the awkwardness would be too much for the particular situation. So, after convincing myself that my coat, boots, and other clothing weighed 17 pounds, I followed the woman back to room number 2. This is, coincidentally, where I met Idiot Number Two. This Idiot has a medical degree. After thoroughly explaining my situation, and describing the ear pain that brought me to their facility this morning, he looked in my throat and both of my ears. He turned his back, washed his hands for a very long time, staring straight ahead at the cabinet in front of his face, as though he was trying to figure out what to say next. Finally, he turned to me and said, “Sorry you feel bad. Take some pain medication and you’ll be better within a week or so.” EXCUSE ME?? I asked “what did you see in my left ear? I’m certain it’s infected.” His response–“yeah, it looks pretty rough, but I don’t know that it’s infected. It might just be red cause of the fluid that’s in there.”
“Fluid? There’s fluid? Isn’t that bad?”
“Yeah, could be. But probably not. You say you’ve only had a cold for nine days….they often last up to two weeks. Check back with me if you don’t feel better soon.”
With my mouth hanging open like a baby bird waiting for a worm, the Idiot left the room. In my right mind I would have stepped out into the hall, found the first woman that took me to room number two, and asked if another doctor was on the premises. I would have demanded a second opinion. But this Idiot caused me to lose touch with my right mind. I couldn’t even speak….which, for those of you who know me, is a RARE thing.
All I could do was feel the pain in my ear, which was ten times worse now, because I wanted to cry. The pressure of the tears building up behind my eyes was somehow making my left ear hurt so much worse. I’m certain that I looked just like a two year old child who is about to cry….their bottom lip quivering with a look of sadness in their eyes that’s simply pitiful. I held the tears in for approximately sixty seconds, which is about how long it took me to get to my car. Then I let go. And I let go good. I called my husband and did the crying-talk through loud sobs. Not understanding a word I said, he panicked and thought I was calling to tell him I had wrecked the car.
After a good five minutes, he had calmed me down and encouraged me to go to another facility to get a second opinion. Five minutes away, I park at facility number two. With the luck of the morning, it didn’t open until 9:00, so I had about 25 minutes to wait. I sat there and looked at myself in the mirror, thinking about how horribly ugly and monkey-like I look after I cry. Some people can cry, and then five minutes later they look fine. I look all puffed up and swollen for hours. The bags that form under my eyes remind me of pictures I’ve seen of little baby monkeys. But I did what a great deal of women would have done to help their feelings. I put on lip gloss. I sat there for 24 minutes. At 8:59, I decide to start walking on up to the door….to be “that person” who is waiting, all monkey-looking, when they open the door. As I start to get out, I drop the lip gloss that I had just used, and reached down to the floor of the car to get it. As I rise up, a brown mini-van swoops into the handicap spot right by the door. A woman jumps out and sees me getting out of my car, and she trots….I’d say almost a jog, over to the door with a look on her face that says “I got here first.” Meet Idiot Number Three. As I walked up to join her at the door, she yells “Come on, Mamma! I got us up front!” I look around the parking lot to see if there’s a mass of people coming towards us….a crowd that might make this woman proud of beating to the door. But no–just me. This woman clearly saw that I was here before here….but I guess to her, it was a literal foot race. Her Mamma, who was about my age, gets out of the car and joins us. She looks at me like I’VE done something wrong, steps right in front of me, and walks inside as the employee unlocks the doors for us. I guess I could label her as Idiot Number Four, but I prefer to just keep Mamma and daughter together as a unit.
I follow them in, wait for them to sign in first, then take my turn at the desk. As I sit as far away from them as possible in the waiting room, they begin to discuss–quite loudly– how they are certain that the Mamma has the flu. They go on to discuss how neither of them have had a flu shot in 15 years, because they don’t trust “them people who make up the shots” and then begin talking about “Steve” who DIED from the flu last year. From their conversation, I’m assuming Steve was a family member, and from listening in on their words even more, which was very easy to do at the volume they were speaking, Steve was trying to get back with his ex-wife when he died. They didn’t have children because Steve was too obsessed with motorcycles. That’s all I heard of the conversation, because it was at this time that I decided to go to the restroom and scald my hands with hot water and soap, seeing as how I was just at the same counter, probably using the same ink pen as this woman who was just certain she had the flu.
I was happy to see that both Mamma and daughter were gone from the waiting room when I returned, and my name was called shortly afterwards. I had to weigh again, and facility number two’s scales weighed me in at four pounds less than facility number one. I immediately knew I was in the right place. I was led into an exam room, coincidentally room number two, again.
Within five minutes, a female doctor appeared. She was very friendly and listened as I told her the same story that I had shared with Idiot Number Two just a while earlier. “Let’s take a look” she says, as she begins to look in my right ear–the ear that did NOT hurt. “Wow–this is supposed to be your good ear, and it looks rough!” she says. She moves over to my left ear, and says “Oh baby, you must be in awful pain!” She called me baby. She was a southern woman. She cared. And she wasn’t an idiot.
So, turns out, my ear infection was so bad that she prescribed good, good drugs and insists that I get a shot in the hip before I leave to give me a jump start on feeling better. And those of you who’ve had those steroid/antibiotic shots in the hip know what they feel like….and you know how funny I was walking as I left that place. I kind of yelped out in pain when I got in my car to leave….that throbbing pain going through my hip. But I knew it was the hard stuff, starting to work, and it was a nice, nice feeling.
Noted Idiots here today will never know I wrote about them….unless perhaps one of my amazing followers realizes the parking lot tank top angry man was your Crazy Uncle, or you say, “Whoa–I’ve seen that same doctor, I know I have! I was bleeding from the eyeball and he told me to take an aspirin and call him in three weeks!” And good doctor, who gave me what I needed and treated me with respect–she’ll probably never know about this either. But that’s kinda the point. Even though it may not be posted in a blog by a crazy woman who needs to vent, YOUR actions leave impressions on people every day. Whether you are leaving them shaking their heads wondering what the hell is wrong with you, or whether you treat them (or refuse to treat them) in a way that changes their day and the days to come…..we all somehow leave those impressions.
If someone blogs about you today, will you be Idiot Number One? Or will you be the good guy? Food for thought! Now, let me go pop an antibiotic and write some lessons, cause I’m gonna feel like going to school tomorrow, after all!
Kickin' & Screamin' 