I’m still on my parents’ insurance and have been struggling with my mental health. We find a counselor within the network and call them to make sure they do accept the insurance. The receptionist runs it and tells us that they do, so we make an appointment.

I see the counselor for a few months before I determine that I’m doing better and stop seeing her.

It has been a little over half a year since seeing her when I get a call from her. She is aggressive right off the bat.

Counselor: “It turns out that we stopped accepting your insurance shortly around the time that I started seeing you, so only the first two appointments were covered. You will need to pay me for my time from the other appointments.”

Me: “How much is owed?”

Counselor: “$1,600, and I will need the entire payment right now. I can take a card number from you when you are ready.”

Me: “I don’t have $1,600 in my account. You need to call my parents and discuss it with them since it was under their insurance.”

She calls my mom.

Counselor: “It turns out we stopped accepting your insurance shortly after [My Name] started seeing me, and you now owe me $1,600.”

Mom: “When we first called, your receptionist told us that you accepted the insurance. If we had known that you no longer did, we would have found a different practice that did and wouldn’t have made any more appointments with your practice. Why were we never made aware that you stopped accepting our insurance?”

Counselor: “We didn’t catch it until now. Not my fault. I’m still going to need a payment from you.”

Mom: “I understand that it was a mistake, but it’s been months since she’s stopped seeing you, and you just discovered that you no longer accepted the insurance? I’d understand if it was paying for one or two appointments, but why wasn’t this caught sooner?”

Counselor: “I don’t know what you want me to tell you.”

Mom: “So, we have to pay for a mistake that your office made?”

There’s a long pause before the counselor responds.

Counselor: “I mean, what am I supposed to do? Fire my receptionist?”

Mom: “I’m not asking you to do that, but she’s the one that made the mistake and didn’t catch it for months. Not us.”

The counselor ended up begrudgingly accepting that it was the fault of her receptionist for letting it go on as long as it did. She decided to let it go by putting some of her unused pro bono toward the sessions.

I developed back problems from constantly sitting at a desk job and decided to seek a massage. I found a massage parlor ran by a group of young Thai women who all used Disney character names as their work names.

My first few visits were nothing notable. However, one of the girls on hand named “Jasmine” was not a particular favorite of mine; she was rather rough with her fingers and she had a strange odor about her. I decided after two sessions with her that she would be someone I would politely pass on when offered.

Then, along came “Bambi”, a girl with a touch like magic that would put me to sleep throughout the entire sessions. I went from paying for one-hour-long sessions with her to two-hour-long sessions, and I would give her a tip along with it all. This ended up igniting a serious problem.

Every time I would show up for a massage, Jasmine would answer the door to tell me that Bambi was not there and that all the other girls were busy. She would then try to pull me into a room despite my protesting that I was only interested in a massage from Bambi. It should be noted that there was a camera in the hallway leading to the door, so the girls could see the customers as they were approaching.

I then resorted to phoning in and reserving appointments with Bambi. This worked a few times until one occasion.

Me: “Hi there. I have an appointment with Bambi at [time].”

The girl at the desk looked at her computer screen with a puzzled expression.

Receptionist: “There are no scheduled appointments for Bambi.”

Right on cue, Jasmine popped up out of nowhere.

Jasmine: “I’ll take you!”

She began pulling me to a room. This time, I loudly protested, and they ended up producing Bambi for my requested appointment.

Later on, I appeared for another appointment with Bambi, and all was going smoothly until Jasmine walked into the room, handed Bambi a phone, and said something in Thai. Bambi took the phone and excused herself outside of the room with an uncomfortable expression on her face, with Jasmine following behind and closing the door. I put my head back down into the face cushion and waited.

About thirty seconds or so later, I heard the door open and promptly close, and then I felt a set of hands rubbing on my calf. I immediately returned to my relaxed state. This was shortly interrupted by the sound of someone frantically twisting that was clearly a locked doorknob, followed by a thunderous banging on the door and shouting something in Thai repeatedly.

I looked up to behold Jasmine with her grubby paws on my calf, looking like she’d been caught with her hand in the cafe tip jar. She rushed over and opened the door, and she and Bambi engaged in a screaming match in Thai while a third girl desperately tried to break the two combatants up. Once the situation was finally defused, Bambi furiously slammed the door shut and walked toward me yelling:

Bambi: “Can you believe that b****? She called my boyfriend and said I needed to talk to him about something really important. And she knows we’re having problems right now!”

After that incident, I decided to refrain from visiting that parlor for a few months, hoping that by the time I returned, Jasmine would have either moved on or been fired. After booking an appointment with Bambi, who was still there, I showed up… and who should answer the door but Jasmine.

I wasn’t having it this time. I put my hand up.

Me: *Firmly* “Bambi! I’m here for Bambi!”

Jasmine: “Yes, massage with Bambi. Please come in.”

She led me into a room and pointed to the massage bed.

Jasmine: *Casually* “You can get undressed.”

I decided not to make any further moves until Bambi personally walked through the door. As I stood there fully clothed and pacing in a semi-circle, I noticed Jasmine was still standing there with an expectant look on her face.

Me: “Bambi! I’m here to see Bambi!”

Jasmine: “Yes. Bambi!”

An awkward silence followed.

Me: *Confused* “Bambi! I want Bambi!”

Jasmine: “Yes! Bambi! Me! You book a two-hour massage, I give it to you, you always like it, you always pay and give a big tip and say I’m the best, and you always come back for me!” *Points to herself* “Bambi! You just forgot what I look like because it’s been a very long time. Please undress.”

I left and never went back again.

I work in a clinic that provides massage therapy. I was the only person in the clinic on a Saturday morning, with three appointments booked. The first two were booked back-to-back, and then there was an hour break before the third appointment, which was the last of the shift. 

When I arrived, there was a message on the answering machine that the second appointment needed to reschedule, so I called the third appointment to try and move her up so I wouldn’t be wasting two hours. She said rudely that she couldn’t come any earlier because her son’s birthday party was that day and she’d told me that when I took the booking. I wasn’t the one who made the appointment. 

I waited almost three hours; she was late. She was a first-time client, so she needed to fill in a medical history form, which she complained about doing because she was only there for a sore elbow. The form tells me about possible allergies, mobility issues like getting onto/off the table, or anything I should be aware of like epilepsy. It’s a necessary document.

During the hour-long appointment, she only wanted me to work on her elbow. About twenty minutes in, my own thumbs started to hurt so I switched to using a wooden “thumb”. She complained that it hurt. I explained that I was damaging my own joints by continuing, but she kept complaining about how she was taking time away from her son on his birthday and I was making things difficult for her, and all she wanted was someone to fix her elbow.

Massage was not going to “fix” her obviously long-standing soft tissue injury in an hour.

Afterward, while I was washing my hands in icy water because my hands were in pain, she stormed out of the room, yelling at me for making her elbow worse. She did actually pay, throwing cash at me and blaming me for the pain she was now experiencing. 

I gave up. I just wanted her out so I could go home. 

On her way out, she said she was never coming back. Good!

My husband decides to see a therapist to talk mostly about work burnout and how to deal with it. After their first meeting, he comes home looking extremely upset.

Me: “Are you okay?”

Husband: “I am never seeing that whack job again!”

Me: “Yikes! That bad? What happened?”

Husband: “We were going over what my home life is like and I told him you’ve been dealing with depression for almost your whole life… and he told me to get you pregnant so that you would be too busy to worry about yourself!”

When I am a graduate student, I go to my university’s health clinic for routine HIV screening. My personal history is very low risk, but I am a sexually active gay man, and the CDC recommends testing of all MSM — men who have sex with men — every three to six months.

The testing at this clinic involves making an appointment, filling out a questionnaire, talking with a counselor, getting blood drawn, and then talking with a counselor again a week later. All of the counselors are, themselves, graduate students in either physical or mental health programs; most of them are not really prepared for a patient who can quote health statistics from the most recent literature on population-level studies of HIV-positive individuals in high-income countries.

The first few times are fine, though the counselors clearly are a bit surprised to be dealing with someone who hasn’t had drunken unprotected sex and is now worried about it, but is just there for routine testing.

Then, I have the Awful Counselor.

Awful Counselor: “When were you last tested?”

Me: “Either four or five months ago. I know it was in [Month], but I don’t remember if it was at the beginning or end of the month.”

Awful Counselor: “How many sexual partners have you had since then?”

Me: “One partner in that time frame, oral sex only.”

Awful Counselor: “Is this a new partner?”

Me: “No. I’ve had sex with him before, too. He’s one of my four partners so far in my life.”

Awful Counselor: “So, why are you here?”

Me: “Because health authorities recommend regular testing for any sexually active MSM?

Awful Counselor: “But you were here less than six months ago. No one should be tested more often than once a year unless they’re doing something they shouldn’t be.”

Me: “Correct me if I’m wrong, but doesn’t the CDC specifically say that any sexually active MSM should be tested every three to six months?”

Awful Counselor: “Yes, but that’s wrong. It clearly shouldn’t be more often than once a year.”

She then rants about why people should get tested less often.

Me: “Well, okay, but I’m going to follow the CDC recommendations here. I trust them.”

Awful Counselor: “And you list yourself as low-anxiety?”

Me: “Yes. I know from my personal history that my odds of having contracted HIV are very low. But, there’s value from a public health standpoint if there’s more widespread compliance with recommended testing protocols.”

Awful Counselor: “Well, no one with the history you list would be here if they’re not anxious. So, either you are high-anxiety or this is not your accurate history. And that makes me wonder what else you’re lying about.”

Me: “Excuse me? You’re… accusing me of lying because I’m following CDC guidelines?”

Awful Counselor: “It’s possible that it’s not intentional on your part. But there’s no way everything you’ve said is true.”

Me: “You have literally no way to know that. And it’s also not even remotely your job to determine that. We’re done here.”

I left her office, told the secretary that the counselor hadn’t given me my paperwork for the blood draw, and went down to get the draw. I also grabbed a comment card and filled out how ludicrous and inappropriate the counselor was. For the rest of my time as a student there, I asked for a different counselor if I was assigned to the Awful Counselor. I don’t know how she kept that job.