Yeah, but do they take Shredded Wheat?

So I saw something odd last week, I thought I would share...

All I wanted was a cholesterol test.

It turns out I as a private citizen, I cannot order my own cholesterol test. It's not that I am not capable of doing it (I know you were thinking it), it's just that my clinic has a policy that in order to stick me with a needle they need the ok from my doctor. You gotta love policies...

Next stop: My Doctor's office. When I reached the waiting room I was greeted by multiple signs informing me that in order to respect my fellow patient's privacy, I needed to wait behind the little "the line starts here" sign. Now this is a policy I can get behind (literally). I don't want to hear what ails the other patients. I don't want to know that the person in front of me has the black plague or herpes simplex 97 or a rash just here. Make it a surprise for the doctor, I don't want to know.

So there I am standing in line, minding my own business, when the lady ahead of me is called up. I move up in line but made sure to stay behind the safety line. If anything bad happens, I am well out of the blast zone. When the lady in front of me reaches the desk, she begins the check in process. At this point, I cannot hear what is transpiring, but I have a general idea of what is about to happen:

It hurts when I do this. Do you have an appointment? Fill out this form. May I see your health insurance card? Yada yada yada. NEXT!

Everything was going fine until the nurse asked for the health insurance card. Instead of a card the lady produced from her purse, the front panel of a Raisin Bran Cereal Box with all of her pertinent medical information in black sharpie on the back (This is the 100% truth). I was astounded. I had never thought of a cereal box as a potential storehouse for my valuable information. The nurse was only slightly taken aback by the cardboard and made polite conversation while she finished entering the information.

When it was my turn to go to the desk, I felt very uninteresting giving her my plain insurance card, when I could have given her Captin Crunch or better yet: Nut'n Honey. She had me fill out a note for the doctor asking for a cholesterol test and said someone would get back to me. I got a phone call the next day that said that a lab test had been ordered for me and I could come in anytime.

That was two weeks ago and I still haven't made it in for the lab tests but when I do, I am paying with Grape Nuts!