November 21st, 2019

I am such a creature of habit.  So many of us are, really.

Every morning one of the early in the day things that I do is walk out to the end of the driveway to bring in the newspaper.  Sometimes it's inside a plastic bag to protect it from bad weather.  Once in awhile, it's inside two plastic bags when the weather really is superbad.  But usually it's just there, kind of naked, somewhere in the general vicinity of the end of the driveway.

Our driveway is a half circle which is neat-o because we never have to back out onto our road.  But that also means that sometimes the newspaper is at one end of the half circle, sometimes at the other end.  That's ok.  I know to look in both places.

It has occasionally happened that both ends of the circle are missed and the newspaper lands somewhere in between. Also no big deal.  Again, easy to find.  Even if it lands somewhere in the shrubs, I can always find it with minimal effort.

Because we have no garage, our cars are parked in the half circle of our driveway.  Having no garage is not such a big deal here in Florida.  It's not like we ever have to scrape ice of the windows or shovel snow out from around the tires after all.  I tend to park in the same place all of the time which is on the outer edge (so another car can pass me if it needs to) of the right side of the half circle.  One time the newspaper turned out to be under my car.  I just got in the car and moved it up a tiny bit, picked up the newspaper and life went on as usual.

On very rare occasions, for reasons unknown, no newspaper shows up in our driveway.  While this is not an life altering event, it's annoying. So I whine to Tim and he notifies the newspaper via their website and at some point, usually the same day, the newspaper magically arrives.

But recently I went out to get the newspaper in the am as per usual and ...no paper.  Hmmm.  I walked around to the other side of the driveway. Still no paper.  I checked the area in between, I checked the shrubs and I checked under my car.  Nothing.  Nada.  Zilch.  

I stood at the end of the driveway looking toward the house and scanned for other possibilities.  I even looked in my neighbors driveway  - They do not get a paper so if one shows up there it would most likely be ours.  Still no newspaper. Dang.  I was out of ideas.

So I did my usual routine.  I complained to Tim who went online and found that, according to the newspaper at least, we were overdue on paying for said newspaper.  What?  We are scrupulous about bill paying so that is very hard to believe, but I suppose anything is possible.  However.....they claim that not only did we not pay...but, again according to them, they sent us two letters saying so. They did?  

Tim and I looked at each other, mystified.  They absolutely did not send them through the US postal service because no letters ever arrived.  Hmmm Maybe they meant that they sent it via email.  The newspaper is in Tim's name so it would be in his email. He checked everything including trash, spam and archive......nothing from the newspaper.  Soooo how on earth did they send these alleged letters?   Carrier Pigeon?  If so that pigeon is a slacker because we have never gotten these so-called letters.   It is impossible to prove that we didn't get the letters. Impossible.   And since it is impossible, we will just take a deep breath, ignore that issue and move forward.

Tim went to the link for paying the bill and, and, and...it didn't work.  Sometimes I just hate computers.  Of course here I am typing on one right now and it's working great so let me amend that.  I hate them when they do not do what they are supposed to do!  Just so aggravating!

One of my doc offices heavily encourages it's patients to sign up for and use the "patient portal" rather than always calling them.  So reluctantly, I signed up.  I have been attempting, unsuccessfully for months now, to read my test results through this portal.  Since I never heard anything from the doc I shall assume the results are fine.

I have two other doctors that prefer that patients contact them through their websites using the "make an appointment" link to...make an appointment.  Seems obvious.  And it's fairly easy to navigate. No big deal. Except that never once, and I mean that seriously.  Not One Single Time Ever has that worked.  I always end up having to call the office to make the appointment, leave a message and wait for them to call me back only to hear them say, "You know you can do this online" to which I respond, "If only that were true"

A year ago, a different doc wanted me to set up a Patient Portal and I respectfully declined.  Recently I got an email from them saying that there was an important message from my doctor on my patient portal (which I do not have).  The message went on to say that if I haven't yet set up my patient portal, I need to call the office and get my "code'.  I'm thinking, if I have to call the office to get a code to set up my patient portal, they can damned well tell me whatever it is that the doctor wants me to know when I call!!! Or I suppose they could have passed along the message through the original email right?

At any rate, I'm sure eventually we will get this newspaper thing straightened out. But in the meantime, I'm still annoyed.