Two weeks ago, the receptionist from Ronnie's dentist office called to let us know that it was time to make his next dental appointment. I was at work, but Chip answered the phone. The receptionist asked for Ronnie.
Chip said, "He's deaf."
The receptionist apologized profusely, and just kept saying, "I'm so sorry." Chip thought it was a little strange, and so did I when he recounted the conversation to me. But we're both used to people making strange comments when confronted with a person who has a disability, so we just shook our heads and didn't think anymore of it.
Two days later, I called the office to schedule the appointment, and was given 10am yesterday.
Chip took Ronnie yesterday morning, and when he arrived was told that Ronnie didn't have an appointment. He texted me, and I assured him that I had spoken with someone at the dental office, and we did indeed set up that time. The receptionist insisted that we hadn't, and said the doctor couldn't see him at that time. I asked Chip to just reschedule, and that's when the 'mystery' was revealed.
During the initial phone call when Chip said Ronnie was deaf, the receptionist thought he said 'dead.' Ronnie was marked deceased in their files, and thus the appointment didn't show on their schedules. It then became very clear why the receptionist kept saying how sorry she was during the phone call with Chip.
The dentist did decide to see Ronnie yesterday morning, perhaps feeling very bad about marking him as 'deceased' in their file. As least we didn't have to reschedule!
3 comments:
LOL
I figured that one out long before I got to the end ... deaf not dead. Perhaps the receptionist was a little ... hard of hearing? :D
When we bought our house, we started numerous local tongues wagging, because when the electrician came to rewire, I told him my husband would be working from home and so needed a lot of outlets. He asked me what my husband did, and without thinking about it, I said, "Oh, he works with UNIX," (the computer language). Say it outloud and see if you can figure out why it was suddenly the most awkward contractor/homeowner relationship ever.
Esbee, that's a hoot! And, btw, I work with UNIX also :)
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