I returned the other day from getting prescriptions at the local pharmacy to hear an automated voice message from my doctor’s office detailing expectations for my next visit. I was to arrive fifteen minutes early to an already early appointment. And if I were late, just know that they would reschedule me. Need I tell you how long it took me to acquire this appointment?
Currently I am living in Littleton, and my doctor’s office is in Aurora, at least 25 miles away. Let us not even talk about the anticipated rush hour of early morning traffic, which is always bumper-to-bumper at several points.
Plus, I have to make this appointment. Somehow I forgot to schedule the every six month appointment and am now rushing against the clock to make it before a year has gone by. The message continued to detail all the info I needed and it, of course, included payment, necessary cards, etc. etc. Didn’t doctors once care for patients? I mean, care for patients.
But this doctor’s visit concerns my getting my necessary meds. Need I say more? Pressure, pressure.
The message wasmade more aggravating by another recent incident.
I accompanied my grown daughter to a recent trip to another doctor, also in Aurora. We scheduled it around my granddaughter being in preschool and navigated through the noon rush hour traffic, finally arriving a few minutes early – which I taught all my children to do, by the way.  Then we stood there amazed as they off handedly told us the news.
The specialist had an emergency. He couldn’t be there. They were so sorry. We needed to make another appointment.
My daughter had just moved, they did not have her correct phone number and couldn’t get hold of her.
The extra step, to call the doctor who had referred her, was not taken. Of course, how could we have possibly expected this courtesy in this modern world we live in? Would it have been so difficult for them to merely think to call that number to see if that physician an updated number?
The nearly one-hour trip was wasted: our time, two-hour round trip, our gas. But, here’s the stinger.
Their policy was that if she missed the appointment, we owed them $50.
We waited to see if they offered us $50. And you know the answer to that. We are still waiting.
It reminded me of years ago when the doctors’ offices over booked. And then we patients had to wait for nearly an hour for a simple visit. Oh, wait, it’s still that way. Merely an oversight on my part.

Darla Bartos has the distinction of having her work published on three continents and, between publications, raised five children, also on three continents. Not precisely the same three continents although there was some duplication. Her work, fiction and non-fiction, has been published in The Star in Johannesburg, South Africa, the New York Times, Asbury Park Press, the Oregonian and others. She wrote a newspaper column for seven years and is the creator of Glimpse. She is currently writing her first novel. (If you guessed U.S., Europe and South Africa on the children, you were right.)

A glimpse of life and how people react to one another.  Strangers who have no idea anyone is listening and waiting to capture them anonymously, glimpsing snatches of life to consider, to contemplate. We can learn about the world through a glimpse.
Take an experience recently at London Heathrow International Airport. An alarming situation, but one you won’t hear about anywhere else. A situation quietly resolved within 30 minutes. For some of us it was a nervous 30 minutes.
A small boy, maybe seven, was pacing back and forth on a stretch of concrete in Terminal A.

“Mom, Mom,” he shouted. He paced. “Mom, Mom.”

No one answered, but plenty of us waiting for our flights looked up with concern. Being a mother of five, a child calling for his mother alerted all my instincts. I watched and moved closer to him as I saw another woman approaching him with concern.

The child had wandered over to a kiosk area where they sold high-end fountain pens and other writing implements. A small thin woman with shoulder length black hair in casual professional clothes walked toward him and leaned over to talk to him.

As I moved closer, I watched the audience. Several tired and bleary-eyed people glanced in his direction but sat still when they realized an adult was on the scene with him.
An airport employee, who had heard the cries for Mom, quickly came into the scene as well. It was a high level situation for people everywhere who stopped what they were doing and stared as the scenario played out. I didn’t time it, but somewhere nearly 30 minutes later, a large well dressed woman with black hair piled on top of her head walked up. The child was instantly relieved. She bent over and said something to the child. The woman at the kiosk was relieved. The airport woman was relieved. I was relieved. The mother seemed almost indifferent.
The mother explained to the two women immediately involved that she had needed a break, had gone to get a glass of wine and some food and had told him to stay with the large stack of luggage. My mind boggled at the things that could have happened to that child while she was gone. I was incensed that a mother would leave a small quiet and well-mannered child by himself for any reason.

Parenting skills vary, I told myself, from country to country. I was devastated for the child because he was so upset. But, within minutes passengers waiting for flights went back to their newspapers, their IPods and their conversations.
I couldn’t help but watch the child for ever so long. The mother left again. This time she asked the kiosk woman to keep an eye on her son.

He never complained again, as he sat there waiting. I watched for a long time.

My layover was eight hours. Who knew how long theirs was? That’s a long time for a child to watch luggage.
The world is different. Countries are different. Parenting is different. But keeping children safe?  Shouldn’t there be international standards taught?

Darla Bartos has the distinction of having her work published on three continents and, between publications, raised five children, also on three continents. Not precisely the same three continents although there was some duplication. Her work, fiction and non-fiction, has been published in The Star in Johannesburg, South Africa, the New York Times, Asbury Park Press, the Oregonian and others. She wrote a newspaper column for seven years and is the creator of Glimpse. She is currently writing her first novel. (If you guessed U.S., Europe and South Africa on the children, you were right.)