No good deed goes unpunished, but every lesson can be learned

The clue phone was calling.  I needed to pick it up. 

Medicine has turned into an American Horror story.  Hospitals are growing like cancer cells, adding on new buildings, new rules and milking patients for every drop they can get.   And yet for as sophisticated as modern medicine gets it the people that get lost in the shuffle.  Today, I witnessed it quite literally. 

We don't live in the inner core of Baltimore, but one thing about this place that drives me crazy is that every morning the window sills are coated in the dark gritty mess, year around.  You can wipe it up and it just comes back.  And the grime stains things a yellowish tint.   Add that to the flowering everything and grasses, the weeds and the cat piss, and reader, I am telling you, I have never wheezed, rattled and coughed so much in my life.

Cookie heads to the near hospital every two weeks for allergy shots.  I am allergic to everything from bi-valves to grasses, cockroach poop to cats.  I have been a compliant patient and go every two weeks.  The shots and the steroid inhalers help.  I can breathe in this God forsaken city. 

Every week, I get "Cats" and other allergens (molds, cockroach poop, etc.) in one arm and the then opposite arm gets "Pollen and Grasses".  I can always tell the "Cats" arm because it hurts like a motherfucker.   Then you return to the lobby and sit for a half hour until they are sure you aren't going into anaphylactic shock at the worst, rashes at the least. 

This morning I showed up and couldn't find a parking place.  The hospital campus charges you to park.  And the places where patients can park is limited.  Usually, it's just easy.  Today, after the July 4th holiday week, the place was packed.  So I wasted 15 minutes driving around looking for a parking space.

Then up to the allergist's office, I go, only to be met with a line, which never happens.  I stand and I wait and there is a small, old African American man at the head of the line talking softly to the receptionist.  The line doesn't move until a woman and her daughter, who have been speaking French, loudly - and not very well because it wasn't "French", but "Berlitz French" - got fed up and decided to go get a coffee and continue their conversation on what sex a mans belt is downstairs in the "cafe".   So I got to move up.  This afforded the chance to hear the conversation better at the window.

The Man: "But this is the room that they said to go to."

Receptionist: "The room on your piece of paper says suite 500.  We're suite 550.  So the office you need is down the hall and across from the elevators that you came up on."

The Man: "So this isn't the room I am supposed to be in?"

Receptionist: "No sir.  This is an allergists office.  Your paper tells me that you need to go to Suite 500 and that your appointment is with the Perioperative Group.  So you would leave our office and go down the hall to Suite 500.  RIght now you are in Suite 550 and your doctor is in 500."

The Man: "So I go down the...This isn't where I am supposed to be?" 

The two women in front of me were uncomfortable with this, and all I wanted to do was register for the shots so I stepped for and inserted myself to get things moving.

Me: "Hi sir, I hope you don't mind, but I would be happy to walk with you to Suite 500 so you can see your doctor."

He looked at me and you could see the haze in his eyes.  Someone dropped him off and didn't stay with him.  He was lost in the building, and he was very confused.

So we walked down the hall together.  He told me his name was Willis and that the woman in the office told him to go down the hall to see his doctor.  The paper in his hand said Suite 500.   We talked about how big the building was and how he used to be young like me, and how confusing this was.

I agreed, but I promised him I would get him to the right place.   Eventually, we reached Suite 500 with Willis using his cane and shuffling his bed slipper-clad feet, and me trying to take small steps to walk with him, not in front of him.

When we got to Suite 500, the woman at the desk looked up and said "Mr. Willis?  What are you doing here?  I told you that you needed to go to suite 510 down the hall."

Willis looked right through her and then at me.  "Tell her what the woman said in that office."

I explained that he ended up at 550, and seemed very confused.  That I brought him to 500 because that was what his paper notes said.

"You don't need to tell me what's on that paper," the receptionist snapped. "Mr. Willis I told you suite 510."

"5 what?" he replied.

I didn't like this woman and didn't know if she was having a bad day, or if she was always cunt like this, but I excused ourselves and said that I would walk Willis over to the other suite.

When we got to Suite 510, I took Willis up to the desk and the receptionist looked at me and then the old gentleman.  She asked where he had been.  "We've been looking for you for twenty minutes, where have you been Mr. Willis.  Raejean called me from the main office and said that she sent you here.  So where have you been?"

Really - the guy has been AWOL for 20 minutes and now you are screaming at him, too?

"I believe that Willis is a bit confused and needs assistance.  Is there anyone who can help him instead of treating him like an errant child?"

Another woman appeared and said "I know Mr. Willis - it's me, Candy," she said at him and his face lit up.  "Let me come out here and help him."

Relieved, and somewhat offended at his treatment I said goodbye to Willis and asked if had someone to help him home.  Just then, Candy came out and said, "We'll get him transport back over to residence.  Thank you for helping him."  He seemed happy, so I was happy.  My good deed for the day.

Or so I thought.  By the time I made it down to the allergist, there were no 16 people in front of me.  This meant that there was no line jumping reward for doing the good thing.  And my parking would be higher because of the time I spent walking Willis from point A to B and then to C.

An hour later I left the building to discover that the car had been dinged - its first chipped paint.   I did stop by 510 and spoke with Candy to make sure the old man had had his appointment and she assured me that all was fine, but that "HIPAA prevents me from saying anything more." Understood.

So frustrated, I set sail in the Prius for the credit union to deposit a check for my husband and it gave me time to think.

Did I do the right thing?  Yes, I helped that man out. 

But did you do it to help him out, or did you do it to get my shot?  "One," my mind said, "was kind, the other selfish."

Yes, I did a kind thing.  The kind of thing that I would want someone to do for me.  But I didn't do it out of a good heart.  I did it to help me get ahead in the line. 

And truth be told, I was annoyed by the old man until I asked his name and we talked as we slowly progressed down the hall.  And once we got to Suite 500, I had no idea of becoming emotionally attached to the scenario.  I was going to dump the guy off and get my shot.

So I didn't do it to be kind, I did it to be selfish.  It became a kind act when I started to care about him as a person.

Maybe Karma taught me a lesson about patience, about not judging people, about doing for people not because I would hope someone would do it for me at some point in the future, but because it was the right and just thing to do in present. 

Now Willis may never have known this was going on in my head.  Maybe he did, but he was a gracious man, thankful to see someone he knew.  Thankful that someone cared enough, for whatever reason, to see him safely through that 100-foot journey.

And perhaps, the ding in the paint was a lesson as well.  What was important was keeping that man safe.  What isn't important is a medium tip pen chip in a car door.  Because in the long haul, which matters most, security or vanity?

I did call the practice and speak with the administrator and I gave him an earful about Raejean and how she needs some training.  I also pointed out that if Raejean had been paying attention to Willis in the first place, no one would have been put out, but Willis would have been safer and better attended.

"Can I send you a free parking pass for your next visit?"

Normally I would have said no, but in my mind, this man having to mail me this was a way to enforce to him that Willis had someone witness how he was treated.  And Raejean surly is getting a good finger waving in her face for being such a cunt.

What Raejean should have done was taken two minutes to walk that gentleman to 510 instead pointing her six inch fake nails at the door and expecting him to comprehend what she just "told" him to do.  Where is the caring in that?

So, ask yourself the next time you do something out of "kindness": are you doing it because there is nothing in it for you, or something in it for you.  Then you decide if it was really kindness or not.