I had a doctor’s visit yesterday morning. Honestly, arthritically painful and moody, I didn’t want to go, but I went anyway. After signing in, producing insurance info that hadn’t changed and getting a printout of my blood work, the receptions handed me a clipboard to update newly required government information.
After being put in exam room, I donned my reading glasses to study the form. My first chuckle came after I wrote my birth date…under that was age. What people can do math these days?
The next was primary language spoken. The intellect me wrote ENGLISH. I could hear my English teacher raised Mom saying, “Stop saying ain’t. Ain’t ain’t in the dictionary.” The writer in me wanted to enter AMERICAN SLANG. So I stifled my laugh.
Next box was race. I wrote WHITE, but upper-crust Mom would have put CAUCASIAN. Good thing they didn’t ask me in July, I’d have to put BRICK-INDIAN RED, ‘cause I fry and never tan.
Ethnicity stopped me cold. Ever totally blank out on a word? Now I’m out-right laughing as the doctor opened the door. “Problem?” he asked.
“I’m just laughing at your medical form,” I told him.
“Well, that’s not a comment we usually get here on our forms.” He walked in and closed the door.
I swallowed my stupidity and asked, “What is ethnicity? I know should know that, but I’m clueless.”
“Where your family came from,” he replied. “You know Italy or—“
“Got it. Can I put MUTT? My answer won’t fit in this box.”
“Just put AMERICAN,” he said and I wrote it in. “but some people do put mutt.”
I added MUTT.
In less pain and in a better frame of mind, I arrived home and related my silliness to Hubby. The perfect answer popped into my head. “Oh, Honey, I should have put DESCENDED FROM AN IRISH WITCH.”
Hubby gave me that here-we-go-again look. You see, married to a writer, he’s more comfortable plotting a mystery or planning a murder, than discussing ghosts or witches. But then he only has to list Italian in that tiny box—not English, Irish, and German.
NOTE TO SELF: Ask younger sister, who is studying the family tree if Aunt Sally was Irish Witch or an English one. You need to know for your next medical form.
Okay, I have a question for you. Is this blog entry as funny as it was to me? Hubby says…not so much.
Pat Marinelli 
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