Meet Her Friend Mardeline

(I work twelve-hour shifts in registration in a very busy emergency department. I’ve just walked into work and we are currently experiencing downtime with our system, so I have to manually enter patients in with the correct spelling and date of birth, or the system will reject them. A patient comes up to me to check in.)

Patient: “I need to be seen by the doctor.”

Me: “Okay, I just need your first and last name.”

Patient: *speaking extremely low* “Dara Smith.”

Me: “Okay, did you say Dara?”

Patient: “No, I said Da-ra-thy.”

Me: “So, is that Dorothy?”

Patient: “No, Dorothy has no syllables; my name has three.”

Me: “Okay, can you spell your first name for me?”

Patient: “I can’t believe you don’t know how to spell Do-ra-thy.”

Me: “Is it just the traditional spelling of Dorothy? D-O-R-O-T-H-Y?”

Patient: “Yes.” *shaking her head*

Me: “Okay, ma’am, the way you are saying it makes it sound like there is an A in there somewhere. But I have you checked in, so take a seat and they will call you up shortly.”

Coworker: “And we still have eleven hours to go with this s***.”