I recently had a biopsy done on a suspicious mole, and about a week afterward, I start experiencing severe searing pain where the procedure was done. I decide to err on the side of caution and call my healthcare provider.

Receptionist: “Thank you for calling [Hospital]. How can I help you?”

Me: “I’m hoping to make an appointment, possibly with urgent care. I had a skin biopsy done last week and am experiencing pain at the biopsy site, and I want to make sure it’s healing okay.”

Receptionist: “You have pain in your thigh?”

It takes me a second to fully register what she said, but I eventually recover and try again to explain, figuring she just misheard me.

Me: “No, I had a skin biopsy. The biopsy was on my back, near my shoulder blade.”

Receptionist: “Oh, so you have pain in your shoulder?”

Me: “I HAVE AN OPEN WOUND ON MY BACK AND IT FEELS LIKE IT’S ON FIRE!”

Receptionist: “…Um, let me transfer you to the advice nurse.”

Me: “Thank you.”

Before 9/11, I was a federal agent flying back east for training. I was required to be armed while flying. The proper procedure was to notify the ticket agent at the desk and show my credentials. They would fill out a multipart form. I would show this to the security person. (There was no TSA then.) They would normally examine my credentials and let me through, but sometimes they would call over a police officer to verify me. I would then bypass the metal detector, proceed to my gate, and notify the gate agent so they could alert the crew.

When boarding the flight, I would give a copy of the form to the flight attendant to provide to the pilot. That way, the crew would know I was on board and could assist with security issues. I would often be seated in the emergency exit row, too, since the government rate tickets didn’t have reserved seats. If there was another armed law enforcement officer on board, the crew would notify both of us and identify us to each other for safety.

One day, I did the part at the ticket desk normally. I checked my bags and had no carry-on. When I got to the metal detector, I held out my form to the attendant and quietly told him I was armed. I didn’t like to speak loudly since it could frighten other passengers in line. He didn’t take it and didn’t ask to see my credentials or badge. Instead, he just told me to wait there while he called an officer over. He got on the intercom, requested an officer, and then just went back to screening other passengers.

I waited about ten minutes with no officer showing up, and I heard my flight being called for boarding. I asked the security man to hurry it up because my flight was boarding. He called again.

Several minutes later, I heard the call for final boarding on my flight, and I could actually see the gate from the security station. The airport was a lot smaller then, so this was possible. I just walked directly to the gate, handed over my ticket, and walked onto the plane. I handed the form to the flight attendant and told her to provide it to the pilot. Her jaw dropped, and her eyes got wide; she would normally have been notified that an armed agent was going to board long before boarding started.

I took my seat and flew with no further incident, but I never had to show my badge or ID to security, a gate agent, or a flight attendant, and I never went through a metal detector. The paper could have been anything since no one read it before I was seated, if even then.

Although this was before 9/11, it was long after D.B. Cooper made skyjacking a real security issue.

I’m at our local sandwich shop. We usually order our food online and pick it up, but we stopped doing that at this shop as they always screw up the order. A turkey sandwich with no turkey? Really?

I order my sandwich. The employee asks what toppings I want.

Me: “Lettuce, tomato, and mustard only.”

Employee: “Do you want salt and pepper?”

Me: “Lettuce, tomato, and mustard only, so no salt or pepper.”

I got my sandwich. It had lettuce, tomato, mustard, mayo, and pepper.

I guess “only” is too complicated of a word. I don’t see us going back again.

Related:
A Big Mayo No No, Part 7
A Big Mayo No No, Part 6
A Big Mayo No No, Part 5
A Big Mayo No No, Part 4
A Big Mayo No No, Part 3

Recently, I had to take out a reverse mortgage. As a result, I have been getting all sorts of emails and letters from other various firms, mortgage and otherwise.

I get this call from someone trying to sell me “appliance” insurance. He tells me that if anything happened to any of my major appliances, they would cover the full value of the replacement. The signup fee is $200 and the monthlies are about $1,500 a year.

Me: “The total I’ve spent on my appliances for the last twenty years is just about the same. So, what I am getting for $1,500 a year?”

Caller: “Oh, very well.” *Click*

Many, many years ago in the 1990s, when GPS, smartphones, online bill pay, and other such commodities were but a sci-fi dream, I was a teenager, and my parents and I took a family trip to California. Since we would be gone for a few weeks, my mom had brought the checkbook and was staying in contact with our house sitter who was opening our mail so that she could pay any bills that came in during our trip. So far, so good.

One morning, after staying in a motel in San Jose, we went in search of a post office to buy more stamps and mail out the bills. This was a suburban area, so we stopped at a gas station, filled the car, and went in to ask the cashier where the post office was. He stared at us in puzzlement.

Cashier: “Post office? I don’t think we have one of those.”

After assuring him that he absolutely did have one — otherwise, the mail would not arrive — we moved on in our search.

A short while later, we saw a traffic cop. Aha! Surely a police officer would know where the post office is. We parked off to the side and walked up to him. We explained how the gas station cashier thought there was no post office and laughed. He laughed with us.

Police Officer: “No, of course, we have one! It’s… It’s…”

Oh, dear. We sensed trouble.

Police Officer: “No, we do have one, I just… don’t think you can get there from here.”

Stymied by how a post office could be located in a place unreachable by humans, we left him at the corner.

In the end, we decided to wait another day to mail our letters. Thankfully, San Francisco had the foresight to install a post office and roads that led all the way to it.