Smothers' Soliloquy: The day I was a professional model at work.

Fish oil.

It's great to take if you have high triglycerides.

But hard to explain over the phone to someone who's never heard of it:

"What KIND of fish?" this mom asked.

It's not a kind of fish. It's just plain fish. All fish. Not a specific one.

"But what if I buy the wrong one"

There is no wrong one. It's just fish oil. There's only one.

"But what type of fish?"

Seriously, you're asking me that again?! What more can I say to you? My co-workers are already laughing at the half of the conversation they can hear. Maybe I'll take the easy way out:

You know, ma'am, why don't you just come in and I'll have our pharmacist show you.

........

Some people make me laugh.

I was talking to this 3 year old at his checkup and I asked him his name. He was shy so he said nothing. Which is pretty typical for 3 year old boys.

His mom said "say I Henry"

So he did.

He said "I Henry."

I really wondered why mom didn't teach him to use the verb "am."

But I guess she's just trying to teach him how to sound cool.

Or thug.

................

There was ice in our parking lot one morning so instead of walking through it, I decided jumping over it would be smarter.

Think about it.

I almost fell over, but I managed to regain my balance just after dumping coffee all over myself.

...............

I wrote 1 Feb 2013 on a prescription and a mom got all mad at me.

"You wrote the wrong date on here today is not Feb 1st!"

A simple enough mistake to make, most days just blur together.

Only it wasn't a mistake.

I was right.

Which shocked me so much I wasn't actually sure what to tell that momma.

But a quick flash of my iPhone screen was enough to convince her that there was no need to re-write the prescription.

Thankfully!

.................

This little girl came in and mom told her to tell me what was wrong.

She started off slowly, "I see..."

"I see..."

And I was terrified she was going to say "dead people."

I'm really thankful she didn't.

I'm not too great when kids come in with mental health problems.

In fact, I'm terrible at it.

How can you tell a 300 lb 17 year old he's going to die if he doesn't change his eating habits? Mom and dad already have type 2 diabetes and only keep healthy stuff in the house, but he already has a job and is using the money to buy junk food. And he thinks you're stupid and doesn't care as his mom watches, crying, because she's tried too hard to change him and she knows she can't.

He's gotta do it on his own.

What do you say to a girl who hasn't even gone through puberty that is cutting herself and needs a note saying she's mentally stable and ok to return to school? (I can't. I had to send her to a mental hospital.)

Or a 9 year old that is on ADHD medication, already at the max dose who's mom is convinced there's no other problem, but is still failing all his classes?

Bummer.

That's the kind of stuff that makes it hard to work with kids.

Thankfully there's a lot of awesome stuff about working with kids that makes it worth it.

..................

This past week was awkward in all new kinds of ways.

Not once, but TWICE, I called a little boy a girl and had to be corrected by a mommy.

I'm sorry but if you put your little boy's hair into a cute curly ponytail or you braid it back into a half-up design, than he deserves it.

And I'm only sorry that I'm not sorry at all.

Really.

Thor can pull off the "boy with long hair thing" because he has big muscles and a hammer and is from Asgard. He also wears his hair down, not styled all up and cute!

But since your son has none of those qualities, help me out here and don't give him girly styled long hair! Let him wear it down.

And maybe give him Thor's hammer for good measure.

Last week, not only did I embarrass self with the girly boys, but I also had the unfortunate first-time-experience of being a professional model.

The second time it happened was totally normalish. Mom wanted a "first checkup" photo and asked me to be in it. So I threw my stethoscope back on my ears and pretended to listen to her baby's heart again. No problem.

But the first time it happened I almost died.

An 11 year old checkup is awkward enough in itself, but dad has a iPad and proceeds to hold it up several times during the exam to take pictures of us. CAN YOU BE MORE HORRIFYING?!

I don't think so.

And since I don't know how to say, "sir I would prefer if you didn't shoot pictures of me while I'm examining your son" in Spanish, I said nothing.

Meah.

It's not like he had a professional camera or I was doing anything scandalous.

....................

Thankfully, I asked for all of the following photos: