The Val in the File-On Mask

I survived! Still kickin'! Wore my mask, and kept on tickin'!

Hick dropped me off at the front door of the hospital/clinic. He condescendingly said,

"You go in that door right there."

"Thank you so much! I've been coming here 25 years, while you go to a plain old office where they give shots in the parking lot, and use a different hospital. I'm sure I know how to get inside."

"I'm just tellin' ya, because you used to go in over there."

"No. I've never gone in over there. This is the main door."

"Well, when I drop off my friend, she sometimes goes in that door over there."

"I'm not going to chemotherapy, you know."

Anyhoo...Hick left for Menards to get a spring of some kind, and I went inside. Which surprised me, thinking that I'd be met outside by a roving temperature checker. But no. They had a table set up inside the automatic door, with two masked gals, one wielding a thermometer gun that she poked squarely in the middle of my forehead.

Apparently I was not too hot to handle. She gave me a mask. "We've been asking everyone who enters to wear one of these." Indeed. I'd heard her spiel to the people ahead of me who filed along the table, keeping their floor-marked six feet behind their predecessor, each receiving a mask as they passed the checkpoint.

I complied, because as we all know, I was there seeking drugs, and this was the route to get them. My mask was blue, pleated paper, with elastic ear handles. I put it on, and mosied to the elevator, not wanting to get in with the other two people inside.

I made it to the second floor office with difficulty! I could not see anything! Just that dang mask under my eyes. Couldn't see the floor to step into the elevator, couldn't see to get my insurance card out of my shirt pocket. Couldn't see to sign the electronic permission thingy. Getting on the scale was a whole new exercise that required grabbing the side bars with both hands, and nearly bending over to see my feet step up. That mask was creepin', even though I'd pinched the little nose-formy thingy at the top, and pulled the pleats open to cover under my chin. The top edge of it kept hitting my bottom eyelashes! That seems unsanitary!

That's the good part, though, that I was put into an exam room after checking in. No waiting out front. As the nurse said, "If you come over to the door, I can put you in a room." Which sounds kind of sinister if you're a conspiracy theorist.

Anyhoo...she took my vitals. Temperature again. It was 96.something, through my ear. No fever here! We got the pulse-ox (96, probably due to me breathing in my own carbon dioxide in that mask), and pulse (71), and blood pressure (138/84, not exactly great, but not bad, considering my fit of pique at having to be there at all, not to mention wearing a mask). She asked about the prescriptions, then said my doctor nurse practitioner would be right in.

Here's where Val was a bad, bad gal! While waiting alone in the exam room, I REMOVED THE ELASTIC FROM MY LEFT EAR, AND FLAPPED MY MASK OPEN TO BREATH ROOM AIR! Every time I heard voices stop, I was wary. I waited to hear a scurrying outside the door, and then I put my ear loop back on!

Good thing, too! My doctor nurse practitioner flung open the door, shouted "HI!" and backed up to grab himself a mask. Heh, heh. Of course I had to tell on myself.

"You just did that, trying to catch me with my mask off! I confess...I DID have it off while nobody was in here with me."

The rest of the story tomorrow...