I had an appointment today at my doctor in Harlingen. Early. We were up at 6:30 to be ready to roll by 7:30. The drive was not in our favor... getting out of Port Isabel, it was "National Drive Slow In Front Of Jim Day," which seems to be celebrated several times a week. To add to the fun, there was a heavy fog once we got away from the coast...
To be fair, it wasn't that much of an issue. My "appointment" was only to get blood drawn so the doctor would have results for my appointment next week. I was told, "This isn't a hard, fast appointment time. For labs, you can come in any time, and you will be in and out in 5 minutes."
They lied.
After waiting for 40 minutes, I went to the front desk again and asked if I had been forgotten... "Oh, I'm so sorry, sir. They are, um, just waiting for the order for your blood test to come from the doctor." I would have believed her, if she hadn't put that "um" in there.
It was only another 10 minutes before the lady who draws blood came to the waiting room to get me. When I asked her about the much longer than usual wait, she said, "I just got the order for your labs." Her part was just a couple minutes, and I was on my way.
It isn't like they didn't know I was coming in for the blood draw. They made this appointment for me about 6 weeks ago. 4 days ago, I got a text from them, confirming my "appointment" (with an 8:30 time) and 4 pages of questions for me to answer... even though they already have that information and nothing has changed.
When my last breath comes around, I would like to have back all my time that doctors have wasted.
On the bright side, since I had been fasting for the blood draw, and we weren't heading back home, I got to have McDonald's for breakfast. It has been months, and I have to say that I truly enjoyed my Sausage McMuffin with egg and the hash brown patty
From there, it was out to our storage unit. We will be heading out next week, so it is time to start prepping. Joan had some things to put into the motorhome, stuff to move in the storage unit, and I got to repair torn weather stripping (with a rubber wiper) on one of our slide outs. This was a new task for me, so I was able to knock out that 30 minute job in just an hour and a half. There was some "hand cutting" on that wide wiper to make sure it fit around the slide structure... a matter of: measure 3 times, then cut once. And cut again. Then one more little snip. OK, just one more little snip. In the end, I have to say that it fit better than what originally came from the factory.
And, some further perspective: this rubber weather stripping and dust seal is something that had a tear in it when we first got the coach. The dealer said, "That is at least a 3 day job - we'll have to remove the entire slide with a forklift, then put it all back together again. You'd be better off taking it to the factory." Yeah, they lied, too. When we made a "great circle route" to go through Iowa (where the Winnebago factory is) on our way to the Pacific Northwest that spring, it took them less than an hour to fix that and a couple other things. Having some knowledge on how to do the job, instead of my "learn while doing" technique would have cut my work time today noticeably. And reminded me again of what a lying POS that service writer at the dealer was. I bet he used to work in a doctor's office.
It was good to see the motorhome again. I'm looking forward to our time out soon.
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