The Revolution Will Not Be Televised. But there will be pancakes.

[captainsblog]

Let me get my linkityspam out of the way first.

A one.

I am proud beyond words to have been asked to guest-blog for the first time ever, and I couldn't have picked a nicer place. You can read that bit here.

----

And-a two.

One of the bloggers at Faith and Fear in Flushing, and author of the awesome book of that name, is also posting on That Other Thing. He put up what I was sure was a parody link in the form of a pharmaceutical ad, but it turned out to be, go figure!, an actual pharmaceutical ad. (What can I say? He gets headaches. This stuff fixes them. He likes it! Hey Greggy!)

Having convinced myself that the post was a parody, I was determined not to leave until there was one, so in keeping with those Crazy Meaningless Words Big Pharm Comes Up With for its products, I created a new remedy, coming soon to a Walgreens near you, called MINAYA. (In an amazing coincidence, that's the same as the last name of the Mets muckety muck who, just this week, fired a subordinate who'd threatened to fight a ballplayer on the team bus, accused a reporter of the worst thing you can accuse a reporter of, and did not trade to fill any of the 27 gaping holes on his team's 25-man roster.)

With that as preface: Tell your doctor if your winning streak lasts for more than four games....

----

Then there's the immediate business at hand. Or rather, at the crook of my right arm.

I had my physical in February, as usual lost the scrip for the bloodwork, and by the time it turned up, we were into summer madness of varying sorts. Lately, though, I've been fixing to get back to the doc over some minor but annoying things, principally the fact that my left arm is showing signs of something-itis. Tendon? Arth? Senior? Not sure. If it goes like Eleanor's much more serious pains did earlier this year, he'll poke and prod it, refer to an orthopod who will practically break it during examination, tell me what it is, give me pills that will make me throw up, and I'll learn to live with it.

I figured, though, I'd better get the damn bloodwork done before I call for another appointment. Our doctor had recommended the walk-in blood draw at the local suburban horsepital for prior years' work, but Eleanor had heard about a much shorter wait at a private place in The Time And Temperature Building On Sheridan Drive (and you know you're from Buffalo if you know exactly what that is), so I went over there yesterday to see if they took appointments.

They do. But not there. You have to call an 800 number. 1-800-PISS-OFF, to be precise. Not a real number; please do not call it.

You do not get a live human being for this call. Or even a dead one. And since studies apparently have found that people hate voicemail trees requiring the pressing of buttons, they have substituted a voicemail tree that requires talking out loud to a neither live nor dead human being.

You should hear this one. (In fact, if I can find the phonepost phone number, you will hear it later on.)

It asks for your type of test: bloodwork, drug test, something, other. I say this.

It then asks for a zip code. This one, it allows you to key in, but it requires the saying of "yes" after it gurgitates it back.

"I found ten locations close to your zip code. Would you like to hear all ten?" (Maybe one way to "ration health care" would be to close one or two of those ten freakin' locations, some of which you could walk from one to the other from?)

I got lucky. Time and Temperature Building was the first one listed. I say "yes."

"Dalamananeedamanafasates?"

Ex-squeeze me?

Oh, sorry. "What?"

"Do you need to fast before this test?"

Right. That means "you don't eat," not "you should SAY it real fast."

Um, yeah. Or rather, "yes."

It doesn't understand "yes."  I say it again. It still doesn't understand it.  I try to be cute and say, "sí," but they're too smart for that. The wise Latinas already prompted out of this rigamarole five prompts back and are probably finished making their appointments with live human Spanish-speaking beings.  Eventually, I loop out of the thing and try again.

All of the above again, successfully passing the "yes" test this time, and I get to dates and times. It wants to schedule me on the one day next week I can't do it. I say no. Pick another day.  I pick today, or as it was known 12 hours ago, tomorrow. "Ohhhhh, I'm sorry. I don't have anything at this location on that day. Would you like to try another day?"

I try Saturday. More awws and sorries. By now, I'm feeling like I'm stuck in an airlock eight years ago and the phone's gonna say, "I'm afraid I can't do that, Dave."

Never, notta once, does it suggest that I check the schedules of those other nine locations they told me about. Probably because I suggested they close some of them.

By the time HAL's lovely wife gives up on me, it mentions a website that might be helpful.  I go there. It lists all ten places. I pick the second, which I could walk to from the first. It gives me an 8:30 appointment. It's been attended, the blood drawn, and since the second was next to Alice's Kitchen (closest to a Perkins as you can get on this side of town), pancakes were consumed.

I'm afraid I could do that, Flist.

Comments

[headbanger118.livejournal.com]

I hate anything computerized on the phone. I will ALWAYS wait for a human, or mess up the entry process so badly that the system will kick me to a human.