And then I almost peed my pants

I really like dogs. I love my dog. She's a great little motivator, she makes me smile, she goes pretty much everywhere. She loves pretty much everything.

I love other people's dogs as well. My dog makes friends easily, and so she has a bunch of 'friends' that she 'visits.' Okay, it's more like she comes with us everywhere to visit friends and family, and most of them have dogs. But still! She's got a little canine social life. For example, Ollie* lives down the street, and Jill* likes to go down there, get let into his yard, play for an hour, and then come home. Ollie's owner loves this - Ollie needs the socialization. Jill's favorite friend-dog is Jack*. Jack and Jill. Seriously. They were meant to be together, apparently. I became friends with Jack's owner, and then her boyfriend became friends with mine,and now we're several years down the road and married, and Jack and Jill spend lots of time together. In fact, Jack is okay with most other dogs, but he only really plays and runs around with Jill. Dawwww!

Well anyway, our friends were out of town and we had Jack over to stay with us for 10 days. Jill is a medium dog, Jack is large. Jack is also a little head strong. Sometimes, you give him a command, and he tilts his head, as if to say, "I'm thinking about it. But I can't decided if I should really have to listen to you. I'll get back to you on that." On the leash, if he sees a squirrel, he gets low to the ground and pulls hard enough to pull a sled full of people all on his own. It was really fun to walk both of them at once. Really. Fun.

One nice weekend day, we met some other dogs at the dog park, played until dark, and then I took Jack and Jill up to Jack's house to check on our friends' cat. They live in the woods. Upon getting out of the car in the dark, I thought I had a good grip on Jack. I was wrong. I saw some animal run out of the back yard and down the hill into the dark, and I could not stop Jack from wrenching his harness right out of my freezing cold hand. One word to Jill, "Stop!" and she was frozen in place. Good dog. Many words, most of them cuss, were screamed after Jack as he disappeared into the dark. No luck. He was gone.

I frantically ran into the house, locked Jill inside, grabbed a flashlight, and tore into the woods in the general direction of Jack's last known position. I was yelling his name into the dark, running up the hill, then down it, up to the street, down the street, back into the woods. After awhile I noticed my voice bouncing back to me from the opposite hill. I could hear that I sounded pretty frantic. I tried to rationalize: "They told you he pulls this stuff. He'll come back. Probably. Although you may have to spend the night out here. And oh yeah their cell number is on his tag, so if someone finds him first and calls, they will know you lost him..."

Then I remembered. The whole drive up the mountain, I had had to pee. Badly. It was a, "Quick! Think of something else! The desert! Dry mouth! Almost last call at the bar and the bathroom line is really long, I'm sure you can hold it!" kind of pee. As I tromped through a meadow of week-old snow, the top layer sometimes supporting me and sometimes giving way to the 6 inches of slush underneath, I thought about this for a fleeting moment, and then pressed it to the back of my mind.

On my third pass by the house, I ran in and grabbed Jill and her leash. I thought maybe she could help me. She always wants to help, and she had that wrinkled brow she gets when she knows I'm upset. She picked up his tracks in the driveway, but that was it. She had just about as much of an idea as I did. Well, we ran around in the woods in the dark some more, and around 20 minutes after all this madness began, I came around the house again and shined the light on the back deck. Behold! Creepy animal eyes in the dark! Luckily, when I got up there, it was Jack, and not a lion.

So I grabbed him, a little roughly, and shoved him and Jill into the house, and my brain says, "Hey. It's me. That thing you've been ignoring? About that... DIRE EMERGENCY! DROP PANTS! PREPARE FOR PEEING RIGHT NOW!" I was glad no one was around as I tried to rip off my pants without undoing the belt, tripped towards the bathroom and...

Well, I made it. I came back out to the living room, and Jack and Jill were lying there, all, "What's wrong? And when's dinner anyway?"

I got home, told my husband the story, and then proudly proclaimed, "But I DIDN'T pee my pants! I made it!" I've never felt so much like a grown-up in my life.




*All names changed, whether human or dog-kind. The Jack and Jill? Their real names also match a famous mythical couple.

The Office Hardware Specialist

"The copy machine is off. How do I turn it on?"

"It's asleep. Just lift the lid, or put your paper in the copy tray."

"But.. it's dark. There aren't any lights. It must be off, because this button isn't working." Hits random button.

"Just put your paper in it."

"And then how do I turn it on?" Still holding tightly onto the paper to be copied.

"It will turn on automatically when you- Actually, here, let me do it." Places paper in copier, copier awakes from sleep, beeps twice, screen says 'ready.'

"Oh look! How did you turn it on?!"

"...Magic."

*****

I cannot, just cannot, be the only person who knows how to copy a piece of paper after all these years with the same copy machine.... Can I?

Love.

Your smile.

The way you laugh at my jokes - that laugh that seems to be reserved just for me.

The passion you have for your profession.

All the inside jokes.

Sticking with me even though I'm often a pain in the ass.

Traveling with you.

Walking the dog with you.

Doing boring errands with you.

Practicing yoga together.

Coffee and waffles and debate on Sunday mornings.

Your passion... with me...

The way you talk to the dog.

The way you put up with the cat.

Your do-it-yourself attitude.

The fact that you don't spend much time worrying about what others think of you.

When I'm with you, I feel like I'll never grow old.

The way we've grown up together.

The things that have changed.

The things that have stayed the same.

When I'm with you, nothing else matters.

Thanks for being with me.

Why You, the people in my waiting room, are turning me into a hermit...

Or: Why I now hate people

This list is cranky, yes, but everything on it has happened a minimum of twice, and usually much more often than that. And this would be 10 to 15% of our patients. But they take up 90% of my time. And they are making me into a home-bound hermit who screens all her calls.

1. You have a 12 minute conversation with your wife on your cellphone while looming over my desk. A private conversation. About everything on your schedule for the next week. And her schedule. And the dog's schedule.
2. You show up 30 to 90 minutes early to your appointment with your whole extended family, taking up all the seats in the waiting room, and then picnic on MacDonald's while the rest of the patients wander around or lean against my desk, because there is no where to sit.
3. Actually, if you bring anything to eat besides a smoothie or a granola bar (ie, it smells), I hate you.
4. You bring all 5 of your children, all under age 8, to your appointment every time, but you never bring anything for them to do, and they've read and played with everything we have in our meager kids basket a million times.
5. You're always late. Always. Even if we schedule it for 15 minutes later than you say you are coming. And then you have to go to the bathroom, too.
6. You smoke half a pack of cigarettes before coming into the office, and then drown yourself in cologne in the bathroom down the hall. Hot.
7. You complain about our lack of coffee/tea/the tea that you like/muffins/snacks. This is a doctors office. If you are here to eat and drink, you've come to the wrong place. We provide tea in the winter as a courtesy, and there's no guarantee it will be your favorite. Oh, and I know you won't thank us for the tea, either.
8. You try to sneak the People magazine out of the office, requiring me to call you on it like you were a child. Then you complain that we, "probably get them for free anyway." Which is false. And even if it were true, your behavior is still completely inappropriate.
9. You consistently call me Amber, or Amanda, or Susan. None of these are even close to my name. I don't expect you to know my name, but you don't have to make it up, either.
10. You show up early/late and demand to be seen immediately.

11. You sit and stare at me while waiting for your appointment. The whole time. Just staring at me. Why? Read, or at least stare at the wall or something.
12. You stay for an hour after your appointment and read the people magazine out loud to me. Even when I'm on the phone or talking to another patient or, god forbid, working.
13. You ask other patients in the waiting room what they are here for. If you don't know why this is inappropriate, you either have Asperger's or are a jerk. The first is forgivable.
14. Every one minute after your appointment was set to start, you ask me if we are running late, or how long it will be. Once in for your half hour appointment, it turns out you'd like to address not just the one problem, but also three others and also you need a letter written for (employer/other doctor/airlines/fill in the blank). You do not see the correlation between these two things.
15. You come into the office and immediately step up to the counter and announce yourself and shove your credit card at me for your copay, even though I am talking to another person already. You are far more important, apparently.
16. You cannot decide when to schedule. The phone rings/another patient comes in, so I excuse myself to answer it/help them. You nod. I begin taking phone call/helping person, you begin rattling off times that work for you. I am not making eye contact, I try to put my hand up, you talk softer, but you lean in. You assume I am super human, and able to process different conversations in each ear. This is false.
17. Same as 16, but you don't interrupt me. Thank you! However, you do stare at me the whole time, rather than looking at your calender, so when I get back to you, you still have no idea at all what "works for you next week, let me just take a look..."
18. You are fiddling with your smartphone to look at your calender. I have other people waiting behind you/on the phone. You then proceed to answer a phone call/read your email/send a text message. You are unaware that this is rude.
19. You call to schedule, we put you in at 3. You call back 5 minutes later, move it to 5. You call 30 minutes later, and ask to move it back to 3. This appt. has since been filled. You sigh loudly and hang up on me, leaving me to wonder when/if you will be coming.

20. Every time you come in, you ask me to explain your insurance benefits. Every time, I explain them to you to what seems like your satisfaction. The next time, we will have the same exact conversation. I seem to be the only one who is listening.
21. You have a conversation on your phone, with your phone on speaker, and there are 3 other people quietly waiting for their appointments. You don't notice.
22. You come in with the flu/strep/something contagious. We are not seeing you for your illness. You fail to see how this might be unwelcome as you cough without covering your mouth.
23. Worse, you bring your sick child in with you. I end up helping her in the bathroom. She has the stomach flu. You fail to even say thank you, or acknowledge in any way that this is above and beyond my job.
24. When you came in/called earlier, I was in the bathroom. You give me a hard time for slacking off at work the next time you see or talk to me.
25. I have to miss work for a personal reason. The next time you see or talk to me, you ask me about it, I politely decline to discuss it. You keep asking me about it, and ask my boss about it too. You make guesses.
26. Related, you ask me if I'm pregnant at least 3 times a year. I've actually lost 17 pounds in the last year. You ask anyway, and you always have follow-up questions: Why not? When will you try? Etc. I've never brought the very personal topic of reproduction up with you or any other patient, ever.
27. You leave a message at 3am about wanting an appointment, but without mentioning a specific day or time. I leave you a return message in the morning, just throwing some times out there. You call back at the end of the day and want to get that 5:30 I mentioned, which is 10 minutes from now. You are pissed when told it's been taken, and say you'll call back later. Rinse and repeat.
28. You hit on me. You hit on another woman in the office. You complain to me that girls are all the same. Nothing about this strikes you as inappropriate.
29. You lean over my counter to try to look at my computer screen, or start to read the things on my desk out loud. You are offended when I turn the screen away or cover the things on my desk.
30. You reach down to my desk to remove a pen, despite the pen holder full of pens right in front of you. You give me a hard time for not sharing my personal pen.

And that's only 30 of the reasons I have for hating people and becoming a homebody. Certainly not complete, but I feel a little better getting that off my chest. Thank you, everyone.

PS. Before you take the time to leave this comment, I'll get it out of the way: Why, yes, I could get another job. I mean, probably not easily, what with the crappy economy and all. Truth is, I do like my job. I love to people I work for, I love the people I work with, and I like most of our clients. It's just that people do things that drive me insane, you know? And that's what this blog is about: me ranting and blowing off some steam so I don't get fired for throwing a phone receiver at someone's face.
Have a nice day.