Paczkis [Polish filled doughnuts] are VERY important in Chicago culture. On Paczki Day/Mardi Gras, bakeries are extremely busy. 

Unfortunately, I have to get dental work done that day. However, as I’m leaving work, one of my coworkers tells me to grab a Paczki. Of course! It’s the end of the lunch hour, so there are only powdered sugar-coated ones, but not only are they fresh, they’re filled with Boston creme. 

I think I can spend the drive to the endodontist with sticky fingers… and sticky teeth. 

I’ve never been to this office before, so as I walk in, I’m trying to dust myself off. The powdered sugar got EVERYWHERE — it’s still on the passenger seat in my car — meaning it’s also all over me. Have to look nice otherwise, I guess, right? Even if my teeth are awful? 

Eventually, a tiny lady with a thick accent leads me into the room. She’s the tech and is to prep me. 

Tech: “Okay, please have a seat. You can put your jacket on the bench over there.”

Me: “I’m so sorry if I look like I’m dusty. I just had a Paczki on the way here.”

The tech eyes me strangely for a moment and then bursts out laughing.

Tech: “That’s right! It’s Paczki Day! I have to get one later.”

As the tech is busying herself with prep, I try to make polite conversation. (I’m anxious, breakfast was that Paczki, and I’ve never had this kind of work done before!) 

Me: “How many of these procedures do you do a day?”

Tech: “How many of what you’re getting? I mean, we do just about everything every day. Sweetheart, don’t worry. Yours will be forty minutes. Forty-five, tops.”

Me: “Wait, seriously?”

Tech: “We’re only doing one tooth today, right? You’ll be fine. In fact, think about Paczki!”

She pats my shoulder and winks at me. 

In the middle of the work, I have to stop them so I can swallow. As I’m doing so, I motion to the tech. 

Me: “I’ hryink whoo hink ahou’ hasskeys!”

Endodontist: “…suction?”

Me: “Oh, oh, hasskeys!”

Endodontist: “What?”

Tech: “You want to think about… Paczkis?!”

She loses her cool for a second and laughs, leaving the doctor bewildered and a little upset that he had to stop work. 

As I’m leaving when it’s over and chatting with the tech again (who tells me that once the novocaine wears off, it’ll be very painful), just before she leaves…

Tech: *Triumphantly* “Now I’m going to get a Paczki!”

Me: *Laughing* “Enjoy!”

It was VERY painful when the novocaine wore off, but remembering this helped me to forget it!

I’m a home health nurse and take care of primarily medically homebound children. At one home, I found myself using tactics I’d usually use to deal with unruly children to deal with fully cognizant adults. 

Our company provides us with some supplies that we use daily in the home, like hand sanitizer, hand soap, paper towels, and gloves. I had worked for a while with a family with several young children and had learned that if I didn’t lock it up or keep it in my pocket, little hands would find and walk off with everything they could reach. Kids are kids, and they loved playing doctor with real medical supplies — and my pens and chapstick!

After that family moved, I was called into the office for a new client assignment. They asked if I would be willing to work, even very temporarily, in a house where they had a small theft problem. The nurse working a different shift from mine had been complaining of all the company supplies going missing, as well as several of her personal items. It wasn’t her purse or wallet but frustrating little things like her pens, notebooks, personal hand lotion, etc.

They had spoken to the family, and everyone denied taking anything. The parents were very apologetic and had replaced several missing items, but the thefts continued. The office figured since I was so well trained by the last family, I’d be able to help the other nurse solve her problem and protect my own things, as well.

On my first day at the new client’s home, I showed up with my locked supply bag. I explained to the family that I’d gotten in the habit of protecting my supplies from very determined, sticky-fingered children and just kept up the habit wherever I went. I figured it sounded nicer than, “I know there’s a supply thief in the house.”

I had been working for about two or three hours when a family member came in, looked around the room, and asked where the paper towels were.

Me: *Politely* “I assume you keep your paper towels in your kitchen.”

They paused.

Family Member #1: “No, your paper towels. I just need one.”

Me: “I’m sorry, but my company-issued supplies are for the client only due to our infection control policies.”

They tried again, arguing about only needing one, and then gave up when I kept repeating my answer.

Later in the day, another family member asked to borrow my pen “for just a minute”.

Me: “I’m sorry, but I don’t loan out my personal items due to infection control policy.”

Family Member #2: “I only need it for a minute.”

Me: “I’m not endangering myself, my family, or my patient for so much as one second.”

That stopped them in their tracks.

I started keeping little notes in my pocket notebook. By the end of the day, I had been asked for “just one paper towel” about six times, to “borrow” something of mine “for just a minute” about a dozen times, where the hand sanitizer or my personal hand lotion was four or five times, and on and on. It was easy to see that the family had denied taking anything because they didn’t see taking “just one” or “borrowing for a minute” and then never returning something as taking what didn’t belong to them. 

I told the other nurse and the office about the mystery of the missing supplies. Our supervisor spoke with the family again. I had the pleasure of watching her resort to using props and counting things out like she was speaking to a kindergarten class to try to explain to several grown adults that if everyone takes “just one”, that’s how you end up with none, and that “borrowing” without permission and forgetting to return something is how the nurse “lost” several personal items.

They promised to stop taking and borrowing things meant for the client and belonging to the nurse — a promise that didn’t last a day.

So, the last time I worked there, both the other nurse and I took locked bags and kept everything else in our pockets.

I still laugh sometimes thinking of the confused looks on their faces when told that taking one thing is still taking things that don’t belong to you. It made me miss the sticky-fingered kids who just wanted to play Doc McStuffins with my stuff.

For a number of mundane reasons, I was very small at birth. My mom is still in a postpartum haze but awake enough for first-time-parent anxiety to be in full force. I’m napping in a bassinet at her bedside when a nurse comes in to do a regular check on us both.

After making sure my mom is okay and nothing looks worrying, the nurse turns towards my bassinet and stops dead.

Nurse: *Under her breath.* “Oh my gosh.”

Mom: *Panicking.* “What is it? What’s wrong? Is she okay?!”

The nurse’s voice becomes almost a squeal.

Nurse: “She’s so TINY!”

She apparently continued in this vein during the entire check-up, gushing about how small I was and how there were preemies in the NICU that were bigger than me. This repeated every time she saw my mom before we left the hospital.

If she’d seen me strapped into my infant car seat, arms sticking straight out, hands hidden by my too-long sleeves, with a rolled-up blanket on either side to keep me upright, I think she would’ve exploded.

I was in the hospital during high school. My mom was visiting me when a couple of guys with a gurney came in.

Nurse #1: “All right, sir, let’s go.”

At that point, I’d had a number of tests done on me already, and I assumed this was another one. Plus, I was on pain meds and a little out of it.

Nurse #2: “You’re gonna need your coat.”

It was winter, so that would have made sense if we were going to go outside.

Mom: “Where are you taking him?”

Nurse #1: “To his chemo treatment.”

Mom: “He had his appendix out.”

The nurse checked my chart and, lo and behold, they had the wrong guy. 

I’ve since joked that I wish my mom hadn’t caught them, because I could have had an easy malpractice case, but I hope the actual doctors would have caught on to the fact that they had the wrong person.

That wasn’t even the worst thing that happened to me as a consequence of that hospital trip. Not even close.

I read this story and was already dreading the ending because I am a person with a uterus.

I was recently diagnosed with Lupus because of a work injury, so I currently have three doctors: a specialist, my primary doctor, and my worker’s comp doctor.

I had to get my arm X-rayed.

Nurse: “When did you have your last period?”

Me: “[Date about three weeks prior]. My next one is due in five days.”

The app on my phone is a lifesaver.

Nurse: “Any chance you got a baby going on in there?”

She’s always funny; I love it when she does my intake.

Me: “None. Yes, I am sexually active, but our birth control is one hundred percent effective. I’m addicted to lesbianism.”

Not a bad outcome. [Specialist] wanted full-body X-rays to see the deterioration of my joints — fun times. 

X-Ray Tech: “Any chance you may be pregnant?”

Me: “My girlfriend loves to try, but we have found that we can’t make one.”

Yes, I know, don’t be rude to medical staff, but I have heard that question fifty million times. Mentioning [Girlfriend] usually shuts down the follow-up, and I’ve gotten sarcastic over the years.

X-Ray Tech: “Right on. Let’s get these pictures and get you home to the girlfriend. Is she pretty?”

Me: “Very, and my best friend.”

And then comes the bad one — the one that every uterus owner dreads. I needed antibiotics because of an infection unrelated to everything else. 

Doctor: “When was the first date of your last period?”

Me: “[Second week of December].”

Doctor: “It’s January.”

Me: “I know. My app says I can start any day now.”

Doctor: “It’s been twenty-five days. You’re probably pregnant.”

Me: “There are a couple of issues I take with your statement. It’s been twenty-three days; these little numbers tell me that. Since I started at eleven years old, my cycle has been twenty-five days. My girlfriend’s is twenty-eight days, and I have a friend who has a regular medically checked-out forty-day cycle. Second, I’m not able to get pregnant because I live with, sleep with, raise a cat with, and have sex with another uterus owner.”

I’m non-binary; we use trans-inclusive language.

Doctor: “Do you use condoms?”

Me: “…On the toys, to make clean-up easier.”

Doctor: “And you’re not on hormonal birth control, so you’re probably pregnant. You should take a test before you start antibiotics.”

Me: “[Doctor], my partner is a girl. I don’t have a medical degree, but I do know how babies are made. You need, at the very least, sperm. I have not had sex with or even kissed someone who makes sperm since 2018. I have hugged a few, but all our clothes stayed on. I have not gone to a sperm bank or in any other way had sperm near me since 2013. I am not pregnant.”

She flat-out refused to give me the script. I flat-out refused to leave without a second opinion.

The second doctor took my no and the girlfriend thing as proof that I was not pregnant and gave me the script.

Reasonable Doctor: “Not like it matters much; we’re giving you low-grade antibiotics that are perfectly safe for pregnant people.”

The infection is gone, and my period started the day after that whole interaction. Turns out I am not pregnant. Who knew?

Related:
Cause For Pregnant Pause, Part 18
Cause For Pregnant Pause, Part 17
Cause For Pregnant Pause, Part 16
Cause For Pregnant Pause, Part 15
They Don’t Always C When They’re Sticking To The Script