As you know, I work with a menagerie full of colorful and highly annoying (a point that cannot be underestimated in any way) characters. Well, one of them has earned the name Big Pappy. No, I didn’t misspell Papi. No, no, no, this isn’t a David Ortiz fan. This is a thirty-something year-old woman who has no problem loudly discussing her pap smear on the phone for the entire floor to hear.
Hey, I’m no prude. Really, I’m not. But I could totally do without a month’s worth of phone calls to and from Big Pappy’s insurance company, gynecologist’s office, mother, and boyfriend regarding an invasive procedure to her vagina. The dumb shit can’t even pronounce it. She’s an editor/proofreader and can’t even pronounce or succinctly describe what her own OB/GYN did to her. For weeks, Hardytrain and I were stumped because Big Pappy would describe it as "a pap smear but more in depth…it’s called a cuh-cuh-cuh-loss-cah-pee." We thought she had a colonoscopy and didn’t even know it. But why would a thirty-something year-old woman have a colonoscopy?
Whatever it was, the OB/GYN decided to code it as a surgery, prompting Blue Cross/Blue Shield to refuse to pay. My ears have been bleeding ever since. Would I be complaining if Maria Sharapova were over there talking about her gynecological visit? Probably not. But now, one of my co-workers has asked our boss to talk to Big Pappy and ask her to keep her privates private.
You might think this sort of thing is rare, but you’d be wrong. Just par for the course at Company X. Where else could an employee brazenly invite her elderly father to come use the color copier? Not once, but several times a year. And I thought I was bad for taking binder clips and ball point pens home.
Calgon, take me away!
