MRI

So I went to get an MRI on my knee the other night. I go to the big medical building and I ask the nice nurse where the MRI’s are done. He points downstairs. So I go downstairs. It is late, 6:30 in the evening, and everything is closed at the medical building because normal people go to doctor’s appointments during the day. This is not the first time it’s been made clear that I’m not normal.

I go to the office with the MRI #1 sign outside. But it is locked up, all the MRI’s had gone home for the weekend. As I’m looking in the window, trying to see if maybe there is someone inside, waiting to scan my kneecap, I hear shuffling behind me. I turn around and I see a Small Asian Woman shuffling towards me. She is having difficulty walking. And she too is looking for the MRI.

So the two of us start wandering this huge medical building, looking for an MRI. We go back to the nice nurse and he very nicely escorts us out of the building and points us in the direction of an MRI trailer that is outside. I leave the Small Shuffling Asian Woman and jog to the trailer to see if it’s open. It is not. The Small Shuffling Asian Woman is still shuffling when I return and tell her that that MRI is not open either. We try to go back into the building we were escorted out of, but we were escorted out of a door that only allows you to leave, it doesn’t allow you to go back in. So me with my bad knee and the Small Shuffling Asian Woman with her bad something on her right leg begin to hobble around the perimeter of the damn building back to the front doors.

At this time I remember there being a #1 next the MRI sign downstairs. This means that maybe there is a #2 down there too. We hobble back down the stairs and look around for #2. Instead we find a sign that reads “A new and improved MRI office is being built and is coming soon.” I point at the sign, “It’s coming soon.” The Small Shuffling Asian Woman says, “Do you think it will be here by 7? That’s when I have my appointment.”

We then see a man who looks MRI-ish coming out of a door that says something about MRI’s. We ask him if there is a machine on the other side of that door that we are supposed to be in. He says no. He says to go up to radiology, they will be able to look up our names in the computer and see where we are supposed to go.

We’d already passed radiology like 4 times.

We go up to radiology and hobble in. There is a Woman Doctor Lady sitting in the waiting room watching the TV, obviously waiting for something or someone. I go to the Receptionist Lady and say that we are looking for the MRI office. The Receptionist Lady asks me when my appointment is, I say 6:30. It is now 6:50. This upsets the Woman Doctor Lady and she begins to throw a small tantrum because I’m so late. “Oh, God! Geez! Man!”

“Uh, is this where I’m supposed to be?”
“Oh God! Geez, you’re so late, man!”
“Uh, well, I might have been a little more prompt if I hadn’t wasted so much time going to all the places in the building that say MRI and instead just come directly here, a place that doesn’t say MRI at all.”
“Exhale of breath in a dramatic fashion.”
“Seriously, put up a sign or something, we were hobbling all over this damn building.”
“Whatever. (Exhale of breath)”

Then the Receptionist Lady asked me what the Small Shuffling Asian Woman’s name was.

“I don’t have any idea.”
“You two aren’t friends?”
“Well we bonded over both being lost and in need of an MRI, but I’m probably not going to send her a Christmas card.”
“Exhale of breath from Doctor Lady”

I turn to Doctor Lady and feel slightly sorry for her, because she is trying to out-bitch me. And that is not really something that’s doable. It’s actually kind of fun for me, because not many people have the argument capabilities as me nor do they have the inclination to pick fights with strangers. This limits my verbal sparring with really just my father. And quite frankly after 28 years I’m bored with his game.

So me and the Doctor Lady had to walk back outside, away from the building, down to another trailer. And the whole time we were arguing. I could tell she wasn’t very good at having people argue back with her, she’s used to just being a bitch and having people cower. Me? Not so much on the cowering. So we are walking out to the MRI machine, doctor and patient, walking past hospital personnel and other patients, and we are having quite a loud exchange of words. We got some interesting looks.

Eventually I got on/in the MRI and I remembered that she said something about taking off all metal and I panicked, “Oh wait, here, my hearing aides, they are metal.” I pulled them out of my ears and handed them to my nemesis in fear that the giant metal contraption I was being put into my suck the hearing aides right out of my ears.

Weirdest thing ever?

As soon as I handed my hearing aides to the Mean Doctor Lady she instantly became Friendly, Warm, Caring Doctor Lady.

Why?

Cause I’m handicapped? Because my loss of hearing suddenly means that she is not allowed to be bitchy with me anymore?

Or...Because she knew she could now say anything she wanted to/about me and I couldn’t hear?

Bitch.