A month before my annual visit to the osteoporosis clinic at UCONN HEALTH in Farmington, I received a letter informing me of their move and directions to the new clinic. After reading it I was puzzled and alarmed. First of all, it said my physician’s office had moved to 3 Squirrel Lane, and then it said use GPS to find that. I don’t have GPS. My car is very old so GPS didn’t come with the car, and I am old and phobic about new technology so I haven’t bought a GPS. And my doctor’s old office was in a glass building next to a parking garage, parking lots, a hospital uphill, and more. No clues were given as to where 3 Squirrel Lane might be. Just use your GPS. That immediately told me that the directions were written by someone male and someone very young (meaning under age 30). The instructions to the new doctor’s office said, oh, by the way, your bone density testing will remain at the place it was before. I hoped, as I drove all the way from Hampton to Farmington that the people in bone density testing would know where 3 Squirrel Lane was.
First of all, it’s been a year since I drove on Route 84 through Hartford and beyond. Because of the epidemic and the doctors warning against going anywhere not absolutely necessary, I rarely go out, except for food shopping. Somehow, driving through Hartford surrounded by huge trucks with trailers going faster than the speed limit was very different than driving on narrow antique roads in the northeast of Connecticut. When I got to the parking garage in Farmington, I got good news. I could park in the lower level and walk out of the garage onto a sidewalk and over to the glass building where the bone density test is done. And more good news! The doctor’s office had merely moved across the street from this glass building! That’s when I knew that the letter with the directions to the doctor’s new office was written by a young man. Anyone who is old will know why I say the writer was young…because the writer assumes everyone has a GPS. And why do I know it’s a male writer? Because he does not give directions by landmarks (meaning by common sense).
Years ago I read an article written by a psychologist about possible differences between male and female brains. His article gave the result of tests done on men and women for directions on how to get to a certain place. For instance, if you ask for directions to the new restaurant in town, a man will give the directions by vectors, saying five blocks west, then two blocks north, then one block east. A woman would say, do you know where the Good Bank is in town? Well, go past Good Bank towards George’s Grocery, turn right at George’s and go to the gas station, then turn left. In other words, women give directions by landmarks, not vectors. That’s how I know that the writer of the letter giving me directions to my doctor’s new office was a man, because a woman would just have said the doctor’s new office is right across the street from the bone density office and parking garage.
The only thing more dangerous than directions from a medical facility is directions from the government. Months ago I got via snail mail my new Medicare card with a new Medicare number on it. The federal government did this to all Medicare recipients because the old ones had the same number as your social security number, and identity theft was becoming more of a problem in this country. The letter said in the first paragraph, this is your new card and new number, shred the old one right away. Immediately, my instincts said no, don’t do that yet. Why? Because as an attorney (retired now) I had to deal with town governments and the state government, and I found that their directions were not always easy or accurate. I kept reading the letter. Sure enough, at the bottom of the letter, it said, oh, by the way, if you have signed up for medication/pharmacy benefits with Medicare, don’t shred your old Medicare card, you may need it for the pharmacy.
And you know what else? When I got to Farmington, there was no street sign saying Squirrel Lane.
Angela Hawkins Fichter