"Quit Touching Stuff!"/The Doctor Waiting Game
Anytime I have to wait I get curious. This drives The Divine Mrs. M. nuts.
While picking out caskets for her mothers funeral in the upstairs "Gallery o' Caskets and Urns" at the funeral home we were left alone for a while. I started poking around the urns. I'd never touched one. (As a teenager, I'd help spread the ashes of a never met paternal uncle on a Canadian hillside, but he was kept in a Hills Brothers coffee can - much to my mother's chagrin - not in an urn. I'd already touched a Hills Brothers coffee can. It felt just like a Folgers can.)
Anyway, I picked some urns up to see how much they weighed, how were they finished inside, what they were made of. They ranged from the classic urn shape to little boxes with a sleek stainless steel design (The DeLorean of urns?). Anyway, it was an emotional time and The Divine politely requested that I "Quit touching stuff" and sit my ass down. I think there was something in there about the attention span of a four-year old.
The place where I probably do touch stuff too much is the doctors office...but they always make me wait so damn long. I play with the little thingy that they look into your ears with. I try to figure out the use for any other instruments they have. If I find a stethescope, I've hit jackpot. One time, I saw something that caught my attention in the back of a floor cabinet. It was hard to reach and I had half my body in the cabinet trying to reach it. I can't remember what it was but I do remember the look on the doctor's face when he walked in.
"Sorry. I got bored," was all I could explain.
But I've turned this around on the doctors. For some reason, the doctors I use always bring me back into a little room, have a nurse take my weight, temp, and b.p. and then leave me to wait. The last time - a 9 a.m. appointment - the actual doctor didn't come in until 9:50.
So I taught her a lesson. I've done this before. I allow them to let me sit in that room for 20 minutes. Then I go to work.
Everything in the bottom shelves get nicely rearranged to the top. Everything in the right cabinet gets place carefully in the left. If there are cabinets on each side of the room - they get switched. The cotton balls, tongue depressors, alcohol swipes, bottles of iodine, needles are all neatly rearranged. When the MD goes for a needle, he'll have to open 3 doors. HA! There's no destruction. Nothing harmed. Just the same level of inconvience that I experienced in waiting redirected toward my medical practioner.
I think if we all did this that the doctors would start providing a little better service. And if nothing else, that's what they get for making me wait. Or they'd start locking the cabinets.
Stay You.
Back to The Pure Investor
While picking out caskets for her mothers funeral in the upstairs "Gallery o' Caskets and Urns" at the funeral home we were left alone for a while. I started poking around the urns. I'd never touched one. (As a teenager, I'd help spread the ashes of a never met paternal uncle on a Canadian hillside, but he was kept in a Hills Brothers coffee can - much to my mother's chagrin - not in an urn. I'd already touched a Hills Brothers coffee can. It felt just like a Folgers can.)
Anyway, I picked some urns up to see how much they weighed, how were they finished inside, what they were made of. They ranged from the classic urn shape to little boxes with a sleek stainless steel design (The DeLorean of urns?). Anyway, it was an emotional time and The Divine politely requested that I "Quit touching stuff" and sit my ass down. I think there was something in there about the attention span of a four-year old.
The place where I probably do touch stuff too much is the doctors office...but they always make me wait so damn long. I play with the little thingy that they look into your ears with. I try to figure out the use for any other instruments they have. If I find a stethescope, I've hit jackpot. One time, I saw something that caught my attention in the back of a floor cabinet. It was hard to reach and I had half my body in the cabinet trying to reach it. I can't remember what it was but I do remember the look on the doctor's face when he walked in.
"Sorry. I got bored," was all I could explain.
But I've turned this around on the doctors. For some reason, the doctors I use always bring me back into a little room, have a nurse take my weight, temp, and b.p. and then leave me to wait. The last time - a 9 a.m. appointment - the actual doctor didn't come in until 9:50.
So I taught her a lesson. I've done this before. I allow them to let me sit in that room for 20 minutes. Then I go to work.
Everything in the bottom shelves get nicely rearranged to the top. Everything in the right cabinet gets place carefully in the left. If there are cabinets on each side of the room - they get switched. The cotton balls, tongue depressors, alcohol swipes, bottles of iodine, needles are all neatly rearranged. When the MD goes for a needle, he'll have to open 3 doors. HA! There's no destruction. Nothing harmed. Just the same level of inconvience that I experienced in waiting redirected toward my medical practioner.
I think if we all did this that the doctors would start providing a little better service. And if nothing else, that's what they get for making me wait. Or they'd start locking the cabinets.
Stay You.
Back to The Pure Investor
posted by Howard McEwen, CFA at Friday, December 01, 2006
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