Karen Reivich

A few months ago my three sons and I went to a drug store to get fast sports physicals for school. Our quick stop turned into a three and half hour comedy of errors. We should have turned and run when we noticed the electronic wait time displayed 820 minutes, even though there was just one kid in line ahead of us!  As you can guess, things went from bad to absurd. The doctor confused Jacob and Aaron and entered their data wrong – resulting in one jumbled physical instead of two. He was perplexed – almost miffed -- when Jonathan (who is 12) didn’t know if his paternal grandparents had coronary artery disease or liver damage.  On and on it went, culminating with the frazzled doctor throwing up his hands and asking my son Aaron, to tell him how to correct all of the mislabeled reports that were now streaming out of the printer. It was an I Love Lucy meets the The Office experience.  You might be wondering what I was doing during all of this. Being the take charge mother that I am, I began to laugh and laugh and laugh  -- hyperventilating, fist pounding thigh, tears streaming down my cheeks – kind of laughter.  I didn’t want to hurt the doctor’s feelings so I tried to stop laughing, which of course, made me – and then my sons, laugh all the harder. Months later, whenever I bring up that afternoon, my sons and I break out into grins. It’s the funniest 820 Minute Clinic we’ve ever had the joy to visit.

Warmly,

Karen Reivich, Ph.D.

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