moogiemoo

I had a doctor's appointment recently and was sent to the other end of the office to wait to have blood drawn. Never a fun prospect. The woman beside me was having issues with verifying insurance coverage so I overheard her frustrating phone conversation. As she sat there her head was down and she looked like she might cry.

I turned to her and made small talk and introduced myself. I gave her an opening and it all poured out. The frustration of dealing with doctor's who she felt looked down on her. Her serious medical conditions including hospitalization for mrsa. And though she had cleared the infection to even doctors treat her like a leper. The difficulty of getting to this location (Pittsburgh bus system is not NYC) where to travel 3 miles she would have to take 3 buses and 1 1//2 hours time. I assured her that I understood. And I did understand. When they told us the person who draws blood there had called off and we would have to go to the hospital next door she looked distressed. I assured her that it was not far, walking distance indoors and that I would go with her. She had to go back for a vaccination Yes, I would wait. Her husband would join us to go to the Lab.

I stepped over to the nurse who I had confused earlier when she asked if we were together, when I first said no, then yes. At that time she gave us directions to the Lab for blood work. I told her sorry for the earlier confusion but that Sue and I are not really friends, that we had just met but I stayed because she was upset. The nurse looked a surprised and made a big deal about how nice that was.

I appreciated the nurses comments but shouldn't this be Standard Operating Procedure for human beings. If most people see an animal in distress or "lost" don't they stop and try to do something? This woman certainly seemed lost to me.

I want a world where helping another human in distress is not even commented on because it is so common. Perhaps I'm dreaming. But it's my life and CAN dream, can't I?

On Family

I think that my father spoke only when he really had something to say. He was a quiet man but would occasionally get into discussions when my parents on rare occasions, visited friends.. There was a Mildred and her milquetoast pharmacist husband, Harold, with a daughter older than me, that I had a crush on. We also visited the Elliots, Bud and Ruth, (with 3 younger girls) who I believe were originally my much older sister's friends. I'll have to ask. And later we had a rental cabin on Erie for 2 weeks with them and others. My father was shy. I know he was. And self-conscious of his crippled left hand. And I think, very, very smart.

I got to thinking of this after reading an LJ post of Beth's. It got me thinking about how I view or viewed my parents originally in the aspect of their intelligence. Beth is more intelligent than I am. According to IQ test results. Was I more intelligent than my uneducated parents? I don't know. I think that my father was very bright and lived in his head a lot. He tinkered and figured out ways to do this or that (hmmm, not to unlike Jeff - just thankfully not so obsessive) and I could always tell when he was bored. He'd make this sound, like "oh, de-do-do-do", and then head for the basement or the outdoors looking for something that needed his attention. Always keeping busy, working two jobs when I was younger, much to my mothers dismay.

My own interaction with my father was mostly a physical one. We would "do" things together. Drive to the convenience store. Take the dogs out to the field to run or me to try out the shotgun (ouch). Always hold it tight against your shoulder - got it. Or, out in the lake fishing, or in later years him learning to water ski at like 50 maybe. Me learning, too. The things we did together. Or him teaching me by example some skill not usually learned by the fairer sex We hung out. "Tomboy". Wouldn't have it any other way.

My relationship with my mother was less doing and more communicating. Our doing would be perhaps going "downtown" on the bus and to a movie. Sometimes to a neighbors house but not often. She stayed home a lot. She did not drive. She had a 7th grade Catholic education, had been dirt poor, moved from home to home because they couldn't pay the rent, was boarded out as a servant to more well-to-do relatives and spent some time in an orphanage. She told me once that as soon as her Mom got back on her feet she always came and got her kids. When they came to her house my grandmother would tell them that they could not take for debts anything that she could make a living from which meant she could keep her stove (they heated with one, too) because she could bake and sell her wares, and anything to do with laundry, seamstress, etc. I remember my Mother telling me these stories so matter-of-factly and I accepted them in the same way but as I write I see how very sad this all was.

I received this in a forward from family in Florida and just had to share.

How do these people survive?

ONE       Recently, when I went to McDonald's I saw on the menu that I could have an order of 6, 9 or 12 Chicken McNuggets. I asked for a half dozen nuggets.  "We don't have half dozen nuggets," said the teenager at the counter.  "You don't?" I replied.  "We only have six, nine, or twelve," was the reply. "So I can't order a half dozen nuggets, but I can order six?"  "That's right."  So I shook my head and ordered six McNuggets

TWO       I was checking out at the local Wal-Mart with just a few items and the lady behind me put her things on the belt close to mine. I picked up one of those "dividers" that they keep by the cash register and placed it between our things so they wouldn't get mixed. &nbs! p;After the girl had scanned all of my items, she picked up the "divider", looking it all over for the bar code so she could scan it.  Not finding the bar code she said to me, "Do you know how much this is?"   I said to her "I've changed my mind, I don't think I'll buy that today."   She said "OK," and I paid her for the things and left. She had no clue to what had just happened.

THREE           A lady at work was seen putting a credit card into her floppy drive and pulling it out very quickly. When I inquired as to what she was doing, she said she was shopping on the Internet and they kept asking for a credit card number, so she was using the ATM "thingy."
FOUR       I recently saw a distraught young lady weeping! beside her car. "Do you need some help?" I asked.  She replied, "I knew I should have replaced the battery to this remote door unlocker. Now I can't get into my car. Do you think they (pointing to a distant convenience store) would have a battery to fit this?"  "Hmmm, I dunno.  Do you have an alarm, too?" I asked.  "No, just this remote thingy," she answered, handing it and the car keys to me.  As I took the key and manually unlocked the door, I replied, "Why don't you drive over there and check about the batteries. It's a long walk."

FIVE         Several years ago, we had an Intern who was none too swift. One day she was typing and turned to a secretary and said, "I'm almost out of typing paper. What do I do?"  "Just use copier machine paper," the secretary told her.  With that, the intern took her last remaining blank piece of paper, put it on the photocopier and proceeded to make fi! ve "blank" copies.

SIX       I was in a car dealership a while ago, when a large motor home was towed into the garage. The front of the vehicle was in dire need of repair and the whole thing generally looked like an extra in "Twister."  I asked the manager what had happened. He told me that the driver had set the "cruise control" and then went in the back to make a sandwich.

SEVEN       My neighbor works in the operations department in the central office of a large bank. Employees in the field call him when they have problems with their computers. One night he got a call from a woman in one of the branch banks who had this question: "I've got smoke coming from the back of my terminal. Do you guys have a fire downtown?"

EIGHT   ;     Police in Radnor, PA, interrogated a suspect by placing a metal colander on his head and connecting it with wires to a photocopy machine. The message "He's lying" was placed in the copier, and police pressed the copy button each time they thought the suspect wasn't telling the truth. Believing the "lie detector" was working, the suspect confessed.

NINE     A mother calls 911 very worried asking the dispatcher if she needs to take her kid to the emergency room, the kid was eating ants.  The dispatcher tells her to give the kid some Benadryl and should be fine, the mother says, I just gave him some ant killer.....  

Dispatcher: Rush him in to emergency.

Life is tough.  

(Someone has got to be making these thing up. Please tell me I'm right." JayLene


It's tougher if you're stupid!"