Wake-up Call

Every once in a while, I am enlisted to call patients to remind them of their appointments. Now, there are probably a hundred things about this specific job that I could rant about, but today I will focus exclusively on the 96 year old ladies.

First of all, I'm calling to confirm your appointment. And you're old, so you don't remember. But this is a common trait among the over 65, so I'm prepared to not just remind them of an appointment, but the who they're seeing, what for, where we are located, and why they need to be seen. So, I dial the number, and its ringing, and its ringing, and... and they don't answer. And of course they don't have an answering machine, because that would be crazy. But, having called, and failed, I'm left thinking, Betty, where the hell are you? Its quarter to ten on a Tuesday morning, you've been awake for five hours already, and you're 96 years old. Where could you possibly be? Are you dead? because really, that's the only logically explanation here.

Old people make me so angry. Except sometimes they are dead. Which is a bummer.

Hey. I'm e-mailing you something.

Interoffice spam mail has become the bane of my mid-day work week.

Cute Panda babies, scroll-down forwards, Top Ten worst si-fi movies worth seeing-- its all fair game in my work place right now. And I hate all of it. See, aside from gender, and a common employer, I don't have a lot in common with my co-workers. And I never pretended to, so when my inbox suddenly started to become flooded with irrelevant, time wasting video clips, I had to ask myself -- what did I do to deserve this? What cultural sign did I erroneously give off to make my co-workers think I wanted to see a 2 minute video of a skeleton with a boner? And how did they get my e-mail address to begin with?

Humor is the worst. Or what they consider humor. I fancy myself slightly humorous, but what they're sending should not qualify as entertainment. I find myself dreading the outbursts of laughter I hear from around the corner. I know whats coming. They call out from their desk to inform me that they've sent me something, and I am obligated to watch it immediately. As if it were, I don't know, my job. -Did you get it?- Yes. I got it. And, methodically, they wait, the exact time it took them to carefully and diligently look over the e-mail, then they ask me-- no, they tell me-- Isn't that funny -- Yes. Funny. Good. Moving on.

How can anyone possibly enjoy this cycle? I imagine in the future there will be a name for this mental illness. The forced perpetuation of mediocre humor via e-mail. Until then, I will strive to master the art of sounded enthusiastic about a joke while simultaneously deleting an e-mail.

Being old is effortless

While I was at work this week I watched a nice old lady in her eighties struggle to hold one of our instruments with her elderly, mangled, hook-of-a-hand, and as I looked deep into her increasingly frustrated face, I realized that arthritis is really just early-onset riga mortus. And for this woman, it wasn't all that early. And then I took the instrument away, and told her to forget about it. Which I'm sure she did, almost immediately.

Growing up is hard to do.

I've recently started wearing perfume. I had to for two reasons, One: I'm a girl, and because of that I am crippled by insecurity, and the idea of smelling bad in a public place haunts me. Two: Cosmo told me to, so that's that. But I can't seem to find the right balance, the amount I need to wear so it is pleasant. Not a grandmother, nor a prostitute. Today, I smell like I should be soliciting myself on whore-avenue.

Huh.. Maybe it really is the Deadliest Catch...

In the spirit of looking at headlines and making meaningless observations, that guy from 'Deadliest Catch' died. Which is too bad, since I mildly enjoyed that show, and he was young and active. I guess all that Omega3 didn't do him any good afterall.