Barking for your supper

None of the humor in this is of my origin, so I'm plagiarizing, but I thought I would share. Besides, I'm giving credit, I'm just not mentioning the author's name because I don't know that she would approve.

I mentioned that I had a claim on my second or third day upon the paperwork for which I scrawled cryptically, "there were injuries."

My office mate, trying to fill out the DMV version of that form, which is a service we perform for our clients, looked at me and rolled her eyes. "Linda? What the heck did you mean by 'there were injuries?'"

I blinked. "That there were injuries?"

"Well, what does that mean?"

"That people were hurt in the crash? Awright, awright, let me look... jeeze, it was my 2nd day, how should I know what I meant?"

My friend, fingers hovering above the keyboard: "Who was hurt? Our insured? The people in one of the other cars?"

"There was only one other car."

"There are two claimants listed!"

"Yeah, they were in the same car."

"Who was in the OTHER car?!"

"Our insured."

"No, the third car."

"Um... I don't think there was a... I'll look at the loss report." I pulled it up. "Looks like our insured swerved to miss a large SUV and hit a small SUV. In the small SUV were both those claimants. All three were injured."

"Ours spent 10 days in the hospital, I remember taking that report."

"Why haven't I talked to this person?" I looked. I had been supposed to follow up 12 days before. Why hadn't I? No notes on the file... I went looking for it, and found it, tucked inside another file for the correct day. I slapped my forehead.

"So which party was injured?" my friend asked.

"Look, all three. Our person was hurt, and in the hospital for 10 days. The other people had X-rays and CAT scans and have both been back to the doctor; one is claiming against us for lost work. All three."

"Which one was driving which car?"

"The woman was driving. The man was her boyfriend and her passenger."

"Which woman? Our insured--?"

I looked at her. "No, the one with someone in her car."

She frowned. "Which one of the other cars?"

"Look... our insured, the A driver, MISSED one SUV and HIT a second SUV, which contained BOTH of our claimants-- the B driver and the B passenger."

"What about the first SUV?"

"They don't have a claim, they got missed and kept driving."

"Ohhhhh."

It's all in acronym code derived from jargon. Sometimes it's hard. This one was especially hard because the B carrier sent over all the information with their claim and we were deciphering it from their point of view.

I called our poor, neglected, 12-day-neglected driver, feeling miserable. A gaily robust sixtysomething voice greeted me.

"Hi, this is Linda with Stacy's office. I just wanted to check on you and see how you were doing, and to apologize for taking so long to do so."

"Oh, hi, honey! I'm doing great-- the car's totalled and I still haven't bought another one, and I'm still sore, but I'm doing better every day."

"I'm glad to hear that. I saw that you'd been in the hospital for ten days..."

"Eleven!" she yipped. "Eleven damn days and I cannot for the life of me see why they kept me so long. Do you know what they did?"

"Nooo..."

"When they had me in that ambulance I TOLD them I wanted to go to San Luis, but they told me they had to take me to the nearest hospital, which is AG. Well, that's a cat and dog hospital, and I told them so, only it's so filthy I wouldn't even take my cat there!"

"Oh no!"

"And they took me to that dog and cat hospital, and I was so sore I couldn't move and they gave me pain medication that made me sleep for about a day and night."

"How were you hurt?"

"Just sore and bruised-- there was not a mark on me, no cuts or nothin', when I had a friend come and see me he said, well, you don't LOOK like you been in an accident, and I told him, well, I'm bruised, I have one black boob and one white boob, and he said, neat, you can have your choice of chocolate milk or regular! It's a one stop shop!" We laughed. "But the bad part is that that damn cat and dog hospital put down a mistake on my chart and they said I could not walk! So they wouldn't let me up out of that damn bed. I told the nurse on my third day, I said, you let me up out of this bed, and she was the first one to say the words, she looked at my chart and told me, but it says you can't walk. Well! I threw off those covers, and I threw my legs up in the air hospital gown and all, and I danced, I just danced my legs around, and I yelled, 'you let me out of this bed!' So she got two orderlies, and they helped me up, oh, I was so sore I couldn't get out of bed on my own, and they got me in that chair, and I said you get me my cane! Because I have a couple problems. And they got me that cane and I walked right across the room and I turned and looked right at them, and I came back and said, now, does that look like somebody who can not walk? And from then on they let me up to the bathroom and to exercise and eat and stuff, but it was hard to get them to listen. Damn cat and dog hospital."

I gasped for breath, laughing. "Did you feel like you were being boarded in a kennel?" I asked.

"YES! In fact, I barked one night for my supper. The nurse, she asked me, what is it, doggy? And I said, doggy wants her dinner!"

I laughed. We chatted. Her only concerns were that one of her two material damages checks had been lost in the mail (I had it cancelled and re-cut) and that she wanted to know that the other drivers were going to be okay (I asked, and they were, and I told her so).

If you ever wonder why I love it, this is why.