Before we begin, if you have found your way to this blog entry through some misguided search engine by entering any of the following terms "monkey" "donkey" "serendipity" "Shock and Awe" or "future prediction," I apologize. You are in the wrong place. If, however, you entered the following sentence into your search engine: "Our pediatrician is a humongous monkey's ass who has donkey crap for brains and who will, through serendipitous events that will of course have nothing to do with me, probably find himself the victim of an overwhelming campaign of Shock and Awe as his house is plastered by a hail storm of flaming bags of dog poo sometime in the near future" then welcome, you are most definitely in the right place. I hope you brought wine.

So, for those of you who may lack background, I have been less than impressed with our pediatrician, basically since Fraser was born. In fact, a little quick research shows that the first time I referred to our pediatrician as "dumber-than-a-monkey's-ass" was actually October 25, 2006. (Feel free to go back and read that blog entry now if you'd like, though be forewarned this one may then seem rather redundant). So today Eleanor had her well-child visit with Dr. Monkey Butt at 9:00 a.m. I also had my Mom's Club board meeting at 10:00 a.m., which I felt I could safely make since the meeting was no more than 3 minutes away from the doctor's office and I have no major concerns about Eleanor's growth and/or development. I dropped Fraser off at school nice and early (he was the first one there) and ran out of the building and back to the car so that I would be absolutely 100% certain to arrive 15 minutes early for our appointment (as instructed by the electronic voice recording left on my voicemail, which, despite sounding in no way human or even comprehensible, still manages to sound bitchy). We walked in exactly at 8:45 and waited patiently to check in (despite the fact that there were at least 5 women in the little check-in-office, only one of which was actually checking people in and at least one of which appeared to be doing not a damn thing but drinking coffee and chit-chatting with another of the women who also wasn't doing a damn thing).

We check in, fill out our totally useless paperwork which no one ever looks at (and if any of these "doctors" or "nurses" ever bothered to actually look at my child they might use their impressive medical prowess to deduce that she is not in any way shape or form autistic and stop wasting my time and copious amounts of paper so I can fill out the same damn autism questionnaire that I fill out every friggin time we go). (Footnote: I am not implying that I think autism diagnosis is not important, just that even my dumber-than-a-monkey's-ass pediatrician must realize that Eleanor is not on the spectrum after meeting with her for five minutes). Where was I? Oh yes, so at approximately 8:55 the nurse calls us in, weighs Eleanor and measures her height and head circumference. The she leaves with a "the doctor will be in shortly."

20 minutes later the nurse walks by the room and I stick my head out and say "Excuse me, do you know how much longer it will be? Our appointment was 20 minutes ago" and she says "I paged the doctor." I'm sorry, what? You paged him? Let me clarify, our doctor's office is in a building located next to Rite Aid. We are not located in a hospital where he could be seeing other patients or even in the cafeteria getting coffee. Either this jackass just hasn't shown up for work yet or this monkey's-ass-donkey-crap-for-brains moron has gotten lost in the 2 foot by 4 foot supply closet.

At 9:30, that's right, 30 minutes AFTER our appointment, the FIRST appointment of the day, Dr. Monkey Butt sticks his head in and says "Good morning! I'll be right with you, I just need to get a different computer!" No explanation, no "hey, sorry I'm running 30 minutes late but I have a damn good excuse involving a traffic accident and multiple fatalities." I just stared at him, pointedly looked at the clock, and looked at him. THEN, Dr. My-house-will-soon-be-covered-in-burning-dog-feces comes back, turns on his "new" computer and says "Okay, so what's going on?" At first I think he is making small talk and I just ignore his sorry monkey ass so he repeats himself and looks at Eleanor "So what' s going on?" and I say "Nothing is going on you giant Monkey's ASS this is her well child visit." Okay, well i don't' say that, but I think it, but I do say that minus the "you giant monkey's ass" part.

Since I have no serious concerns about Eleanor the visit then goes pretty quickly, except that I make the mistake of asking one question, which is about a small grey spot on Eleanor's back. It has been there since she was born, and I'm not really concerned about it, just more curious. So first, our ever so intelligent and worldly doctor spends at least 2 minutes explaining to me what the color "gun metal grey" is. Seriously, I can't make this stuff up. Then he tells me he thinks it is a Mongolian spot. Fine, I've read about them, I'm not concerned, let's move on. If only it were that easy. Then he says, "What is your heritage?" And I say "Well, my mother is Peruvian and my father's family is Portuguese, but really we are a lot of everything." And he says (now pay attention, this is important) "Peruvian? Ah yes, well that is where she gets it from, Mongolian spots are very common among people like Asians and Native Americans." I'm sorry, what?

Then, Dr. I-have-run-out-of-expletives-I-think-are-good-enough now, continues with the exam. Now this part I found fascinating. Every single well-child visit (and that has been a hell of a lot with three kids) he makes a point of asking me if anyone smokes in the house and if we keep all guns locked up (he doesn't actually wait for me to answer, but he does ask) and he ALWAYS tells me to be careful because a toddler can tip over in a five gallon bucket of water and drown (and I do make a mental note to get rid of all those half full five gallon buckets of liquid we keep around the house) but this time he apparently had a new question on his list because he said "Of course, I don't have to ask you if you read to her every night." Now this is the same doctor who had, at one point implied that I was a welfare mother during one of Fraser's appointments, and who consistently warns me not to let my children drown in buckets, but he easily assumes we read every night? I mean, we do (the photo above is from post-bath-story-hour tonight) but does anyone else feel like Alice in Wonderland with his man's logic?

So just as I am contemplating whether our pediatrician is in fact madder than a hatter, one of the nurses knocks on the door and says "Dr. Scott is on the phone for you." So our lovely doctor says "Oh, yes" and WALKS OUT OF THE ROOM. No "I'm sorry, but I need to take this" not even "Please excuse me for a moment." NOTHING. He just walks out. I am on the verge of breathing fire at this point. So I try to talk myself off the ledge. I know Dr. Scott is the allergist because he is the one that Hammie has been seeing. Perhaps some child had a horrible allergic reaction this morning, explaining why Dr. Monkey Butt was 30 minutes late, and also explaining why he went running out of our exam with no explanation.

So we wait. And now it is about 9:55. I stick my head out of the exam room again and ask the nurse if Eleanor needs any shots. "Yes, she needs one." "Well, can we do that now because I actually have somewhere to be at 10:00" "Well, is the doctor done with you?" "Well, I actually don't know since he left without telling us anything." "Well, I will check with him." She doesn't.

At 10:00 Mr. Giant Monkey's ASS returns and says "That was so funny, the Dr. was calling to talk about you." Now the irony of that is not lost on me, but I was pretty freaking pissed at this point and more concerned about being late. So then he starts in on an explanation of Dr. Scott's finding on Hammie and I was like "Yes, I know, anyway..." and then he says "Well, this finding shows that he has trouble digesting lactose which is a...." Me "YES, I know, he has been off ALL dairy for at least a month now." Him "all dairy?" Me "Yes" Him "Well, you must be wrong." Me: "No, no I'm not wrong." Him: "Well, then I'm not really sure what these results mean. You know maybe if we.." Me "LOOK I don't mean to be rude by I had another appointment to make at 10:00." Him: "Oh, okay, go ahead and get going then." Me: "Doesn't she need a shot?" Him: "What? Oh, hold on."

So, to end this horrible disaster of a doctor's visit, Eleanor was good about her shot, but as we sprinted out of the office one of the women in the check in room threw open the window and said "Do you need to make another appointment?" and I said "No need, we won't be coming back." Though in the interest of truth, justice, and the American way I should say that that sentence was uttered through tightly clenched teeth as I ran, carrying Eleanor and dragging Hammie through the waiting room, so I'm not really sure that she heard me, though I sure as hell hope the people in the waiting room did.