Bowel Obstruction #9

    This morning at my urologist's office my blood pressure was 140 over 100 in spite of taking two different blood pressure pills. But I would rather stroke out fighting than to live a long life of passivity toward things I believe are wrong.
    That segues to receiving a call from a person calling herself "Alene" (not sure if I heard her correctly) Peterson, and she claims to be the writer who fired me as a patient of Brattleboro Internal Medicine. I get the call as I'm walking through the Hannaford parking lot. Do you know the place? It' got one of the world's shortest green lights to get into and out of the parking lot. Only two cars can take a left onto Putney Road during one green light, and then the light turns yellow. Vehicles have to roar out of there so the vehicles piled up behind them have a chance to get out of the parking lot that day. It's a ticket or an accident waiting to happen. Are the city employees mad at Hannaford and are trying to make going there difficult? Returning to Ms. Peterson who, for all I know, is not Ms. Peterson since I have never seen or talked to the real Ms. Peterson though she fired me as a patient. Jody Dodge, administrator at Brattleboro Memorial Hospital had told me about a week or so ago that she had walked over to Internal Medicine to talk to an administrator there named Alene Peterson about me getting the results of my X-rays and to get my Paxil prescription transmitted to Walmart (that horrible "big box" innovation that saves the average family about $1,200 a year). Jody said I could expect calls from PA Paul, Nava, I think her name was, the prescription transmitter, and Alene Peterson, the administrator. I got constructive calls from Paul and Nava, but Ms. Peterson didn't call.
    Now that Ms. Peterson was calling, I immediately asked in the Hannaford parking lot with the world's shortest green light why she had not signed her letter or even identified who was writing the letter that dismissed me as a patient. In a steely voice, she replied that it was standard operating procedure at Brattleboro Internal Medicine "and other places too." I replied that I had never seen such a letter, but I had only been a social services director, so what did I know.
    Her response was that maybe in some states things are done differently. Was she implying that in Vermont businesses that fire you don't identify themselves?
"Guess what, honey. I got fired today, but the person who fired me didn't sign the letter or even give me his name. I guess God must have done it or someone who thinks he is."
    Later, I check with several old-time Vermonters, and they had never seen such a thing.
    Peter Nickerson, Philosophy Major, Class of '68, William and Mary