On the Street Where You Live

As I bide my time, waiting to make my fame and fortune as a hand model or Taiwanese interpreter, I periodically have the distinct pleasure of working as an office assistant at a doctor’s office (a direct result of the 5 minutes I thought medical school sounded like a swell idea). This puts me on the front lines and, periodically, requires me to filter the “crazy,” if you will: crazy requests, crazy situations, and, yes, even sometimes, crazy people. There are, of course, varying levels of crazy and, in all fairness, perhaps I’m the crazy one.

The other day, I was tasked with scheduling a new patient. No big deal. Do it all the time. Except, this time what we had was most definitely a failure to communicate. I asked the patient for her address so that we could mail out the new-patient paperwork.

I said, “What’s your address?”

She said, “My doctor referred me.”

I said, “Right, but what’s your address?”

She paused and then said, “For my heart.”

I said (now speaking louder in an effort to be understood, although volume clearly wasn’t the issue), “Okay, but where do you live? I need your address.”

She paused for a second. Then, “I don’t understand what you mean.”

Me: “Do you get mail at your house?”

Her: “Yes.”

Me: “Where do they send it?”

Her, as it dawned early light: “Oh, my address!”

True story.

So who’s the crazy one here?

You decide.