Where Did I Put My Papyrus and that Quill?

She's got a doctor's appointment today at 2. The doctor should see a short letter Ducknik drafted and Plotnik edited, which describes her various ailments, that would help him in his diagnosis, but she would never tell him about.

Plot calls the doctor's Sherman Oaks office.

"Can we please email you a copy of the letter so the doctor can have it before my Mom gets there?

"One moment," says the receptionist, then comes back and says "What is the patient's name?"

"Mummy Plotnik," says Plottie. "One moment," says the receptionist. She comes back.

"We're sorry. The doctor does not give out his personal email address."

"Really? Well, does anyone in the office have one we can send this letter to? Or is there an office email?"

"No, I don't think so. But you can fax the letter to us."

"Fax?"

Well, OK, except a few months ago Plot and Duck decided nobody would use a fax anymore, so they tossed their fax machine onto the street to be picked up by a vagrant who could use it to check his growth stocks. So he now has to edit the letter to apply to this doctor, and then take it to the Mailboxes place on 24th Street to fax it to LA.

She gives Plottie the fax number. It's pouring rain. Plottie gets down to the corner and gives the letter to the clerk. "What's the fax number?" he says.

"I wrote it at the end of the letter," says Plot.

"There's no number here."

Plotnik wrote the fax number on the original letter, but then edited and printed a new copy and didn't bother to recopy the fax number onto the new letter.

Phone call to the Little Bear to get the doctor's phone number. Phone call to the doctor's office. They give him the fax number, but it's a different one than the one they gave him before.

He gives the clerk the new number. The clerk dials the number and it rings busy for the next fifteen minutes solid.

Plot calls the doctor again. "Oh yeah," laughs the clerk. "I forgot. Here's another fax number."

The clerk uses the new number. It almost goes through, then stops. He tries again. It seems to go through this time.

This process took the better part of three hours, just to send a fax to a doctor who will not have time to read it, to serve a patient 400 miles away who the doctor assumes is old and in the way. He will go down his list of drugs given to him by various drug companies until he finds one that he hasn't tried yet, that might not give her an interaction with the other drugs she takes that he pays no attention to.

Or maybe he's not like that at all. Maybe he's a hero. But does every single thing have to be this complicated?

Yes, P.J., I know.