Monday, November 24, 2014

Maggie Monday: The Boston Accent

Keep in the back of your mind that, being from southern NH, many of my relatives have a Boston accent. (Me? You can only tell when I say "Bawstin.") Where we're from polar bears are "polah beyas." Keep this in mind for later.

My aunt took Maggie to the eye specialist who only visits Nashua once a month. "The place was jumping," my aunt writes:
Our appointment was at 1:40 but we did not get to see the doctor until 5:45. There was an abundance of mothers in their 90s with their daughters in their 60s. After waiting for a few hours we started comparing notes. We found out that a couple of us had appointments at the same time with the same doctor. The waiting room has magazines from the year 2000 and no TVs. Most of the old ladies are half blind so reading a book to pass the time would be out of the question. One of the patients asked the receptionist if was ok to leave and do some errands and come back. That was not an option; they would lose their place in line. One of the married couples was concerned because she hates driving in the dark and her husband would not be able to drive because his eyes were dilated. Who would think you'd have to drive home in the dark when you appointment was at noon!?  
There was a moment of levity when one of the other old ladies (only 83) mentioned that her 30 year old grandson was a research scientist [at a famous place]. He is thinking of making a career change. He wants to get married and have a family. She mentioned how smart he was in spite of being bipolar*. Maggie didn't skip a beat and asked if we had heard of the doctor who had just died of bipolar. The woman and I practically fell off of our chairs lauging. It was quite obvious she meant Ebola.
So now in our office we call Ebola "bipolar."

*You know, old people. Us younger folks know that mental illness does not affect intelligence.

6 comments:

EvalinaMaria said...

Doctor's waiting rooms... so annoying but sometimes funny things happen there... Have a great week.
Evalina, This and that...

Thoeria said...

Bipolar....LOL
Why is it that doctors always think it's okay to bill you if you don't make appointments....but that it's perfectly fine to take a few hours out of your day because they double book appointments?

Arthemise said...

I allow a doctor one hour. If he/she doesn't see me in that time, I'm out of there. It's only happened once, and they were very apologetic.

Jo who can't think of a clever nickname said...

Every elderly lady has an ageing daughter in tow here too! They are all asked if they can cope with living alone and answer "oh yes, my daughter looks after me".

I think those waits are dreadful though, especially double booking people. We did complain last time we took the Small Boy to see consultant with the first appointment of the day and he was already running late! Apparently he doesn't look at the files until surgery starts and then spends the first twenty minutes reading them instead of seeing the patients!

Margaret said...

So does Katharine Hepburn have what's considered a Boston accent? Or is that a New England accent? Bipolar. lol!

Linda said...

Great story Nikki. I think I would be finding a new eye doctor.

Linda