Doctora!

Today I left work at 2:30. Before you think to yourself, "Wow, that is a short day," consider that I arrived in my parking garage shortly before 6 AM and spent my day in the Neonatal ICU taking care of some pretty sick kiddos (plus I really hate mornings). Yuck.

We needed a few things from the store, so I stopped at one of my favorite Targets on the way home from work. This particular Target frequently has wonderful clearance deals, and those who know me know how much I love a good bargain. I was wondering through the aisles looking for a warm pair of slippers when I heard a lady whispering loudly in Spanish right behind me. I speak a decent amount of Spanish, and that amount goes up when the words are spoken slowly. This lady, however, was chatting at breakneck speed, but I was able to understand one word very easily: "Doctora!"

I continued to amble down the aisle, thinking that perhaps she was just pointing me out to her son because I was still in my scrubs or that seeing me reminded her to make a doctor's appointment for later. No such luck. Suddenly I hear a male voice saying, "Excuse me." I turn around to find myself with the whispering lady and her almost pubertal son. She shoves 2 pregnancy tests in my face -- an EPT test and a Target brand test. Her son asks, "Do these two do the same thing? Are they the tests to tell you if you are pregnant?"

Wow. AWKWARD!! I told them something to the effect of this: "I think they do, but I'm not an OB, so I'm not sure." I make it a practice not to give medical advice outside of the hospital; I watched my dad miss too many church services as a child because people caught him outside the sanctuary doors and wanted to run a free clinic in the Sunday School classrooms, and I just want to be "Mrs." not "Dr." when I'm not at work. I also wasn't about to get into pregnancy counseling with a woman who doesn't speak my language using her twelve year old son as our interpreter. I listened to her son translate an extremely abbreviated version of what I said to his mom, and she smiled, thanked me, and walked away. I don't know which test she ended up choosing, but I hopes she goes to see her own doctor.

I walked away and wandered into another section of the store before it hit me just how laughable the situation was. I immediately grabbed my phone to text a few people about it. My mom's phone cut the message into 2 messages, and she accidentally opened up the 2nd one first. All she saw was "2 pregnancy tests ... This is my life!" She was smart enough to read the first one before calling me up, but when we did talk a few minutes later, we had a good laugh about her thinking I was sharing some important news over a text message! (For the curious, no, there is no baby on board here.)