Mr. Siphonaptera: "Hell no. I walked out of the lab. They treated me like crap."
Dr. Grumpy: "What happened?"
Mr. Siphonaptera: "The girl at the front desk told me she was going to have me see a phlebotomist, which is bullshit. I don't have fleas. So I left."
13 comments:
I think Kingsley Amis was wrong when he wrote this of the US in "One Fat Englishman" - "‘Oh, do forgive me, I forgot I was in America. What is it, five schools in the whole country still teaching Greek?" The implication is correct though; a little knowledge of classical Greek language and history does no one any harm on their journey through life.
Hmmm. This implies that the receptionist pronounced it 'flee-bot-a-mist," which is unusual. It's typically pronounced "fleh-bot-a-mist." And the accent is generally on the second syllable.
Are you suuuure this is how it went? :-)
"And why a botanist? Does she think I'm so dumb that I think fleas are plants?"
I laughed out lout when I read this one. (And, the responses were funny, too.)
My husband's first language is not English, in fact it is not a language based on any European, African, or American -South or North, influences (... seems based on asexual nouns, and has no trepidation on calling out the incorrect appellation at every whipswitch, and doesn't use too many prepositions correctly, either, so I often am startled by, for example, people beating under bushes instead of around them. After forty years, I realize I married this man without understanding his first language would always be the one in his head.
On the other hand, the language I have in my head, often fails to be connected to the ears on the side of my head, and sometimes the brain in my noggin.
We get along fine, and there is no lack of hilarity. Sometimes, it is not appreciated by those directly involved.
Have to say you have a really good imagination, Dr. Grumpy.
After all, you must be making up all these stories. Can anyone really be that dumb? Maybe the pt didn't know what a phlebotomist is, but would she really think she was going to be inspected for fleas.......
Oh, right, patients ARE that dumb....
"And I'd rather have this bottle in front of me than a frontal phlebotomy."
This post made me laugh out loud. I used to be a phlebotomist. I was called a vampire and a blood sucker, but never an exterminator.
"And now, if you'll excuse me, I have to go buy some Lysol."
"At least, not on my bottom."
"It's a free country, and if people want to practice Phlebotomy it's their own business, but she shouldn't do her religious proselytizing while she's on the job."
Bloody good show ,mate.
As a former Lab Tech I got to do a fair amount of phlebotomy and I am sure very few of my victims were aware of the word. If I told them I was about to phlebotomize them they would have screamed and run or just slapped me.
I work with phlebotomists and once took a phone call from a patient who reported attending the lobotomy department for a blood test. You would know better than me but I don't think lobotomies are typically offered as a walk in service with no inpatient stay...
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