The complaint department

A fantasy story.

"Hi...this is Complaints and Returns?"

"Yes, it is."

"Okay." (slaps a large box on the table) "Here is 2016. I want to return it for a refund. I've only used about 1/12 of it and it's clearly defective."

"Defective how?'

"Let me name some names: David Bowie. Alan Rickman. Glenn Frey. The guy who did the voice of the Fox Robin Hood in that cartoon. A couple other musicians I was less familiar with. One of the ladies from my church. And now, tonight, a panicked call from my brother asking if I knew where our parents were, followed by learning that a quite-good-friend from church had to have emergency surgery and is in critical condition. Oh, and ISIS, bad economy, uninspiring choices of future leaders, massive budget cuts at work...."

"I'm going to have to....you're going to have to fill out a lot of paperwork....I'm going to need to get my manager....."

"You do that. Oh, and by the way, there are a couple billion more people in line behind me with the same complaint, so you might want to get more than one manager."

*****

Yeah, today ended on a really bad note. The worst at the moment is that a good friend of mine from church had to have emergency abdominal surgery and from what news I have it looks pretty dire. (And yes, I'm still set to give the sermon on Sunday, and it will be harder with her not there)

The other bad thing that turned out far better than it could: middle of the evening, got a phone call from my brother wanting to know if I knew where our parents were, he'd tried calling several times over the course of a couple hours. As our parents are not in the habit of going out at night, especially not in the winter when it's cold and there is some snow,* I was concerned. I told him I'd try to track something down. (He has a toddler in the house and they are all getting over some virus, so I figured better I try).

(*Not as much as the east coast is getting) 

First I tried calling them, hoping maybe my brother's phone was just wonky or they'd been on the phone or something.

Nope.

So I called the across-the-street neighbors (Thank goodness, several months back, after I had a hard time reaching my parents when they were actually out at a meeting, I asked for the neighbors' numbers). Had to leave a message. Tried calling the next-door neighbor, forgetting she was traveling.

Nothing.

Took a deep breath. My brain was in the worst possible place: there had been a home invasion. Or a gas leak. Or my dad had fallen and my mom had gotten injured trying to get him back up. Or my mom was badly injured and my dad was unable to get to the phone because of his bad knees. So I looked up the local-to-them cops online (thank God for the internet) and called them for a 'welfare check' (something I hope I never have to ask for again). The dispatcher scanned the logs first and reported an ambulance had been issued, and my mom had followed in the car.

(Horrible thought I had at that moment: well, at least ONE of my parents must still be alive)

She gave me the hospital number. I called, not holding out very much hope because HIPAA. I don't know if they grant waivers for immediate family who say "I know this person is in the hospital" or if one of my parents signed the papers, but I talked to a nurse who said, "Oh yeah, he's pretty much fine, apparently he had a bad reaction to a new medicine." She also told me his labs were fine and that he was wanting to know when he could go home (That was how I really knew he was fine; that is totally my dad)

So I called my brother back to let him know. Then the one neighbor called me back and verified some of the information, and also said she'd talked to my mom when she ran home to get some of my dad's stuff, and "They'll probably want him to stay overnight" (And I figured she would know, her husband is a hospital pharmacist)

So I called my parents' number again, much calmer this time, and left a message essentially saying: Okay, I now know what happened, everything's cool, no need to call me back.

My brother also called back and conveyed some garbled but alarming information from another relative he spoke to who is a doctor, but who is also known to panic considerably over things, so I tried to discount it in my mind.

Then my mom called. They were home. I remarked "BOTH of you?" because the last thing my brother told me was other relative had persuaded my dad to stay over night.

Turns out the last doctor they saw was more sanguine, and sussed the problem out - it was a combination of a pharmacy error (apparently) giving a higher dose of one medication and that reacting badly with the new medication. So it's apparently much less dire than what my relative was saying. (but yeah. If the pharmacy made an error, I expect my dad will be in there next week complaining to them)

But yeah, no. 2016 so far is a big old stinkfest. Part of me is saying "It HAS to be smooth sailing after this" but another part of me is going "What if this is a harbinger of just Everything Going Wrong?"