Today I had the yearly skin check at the doctor's office. It seems to be one of the requisites to living in Arizona and since I spend a lot of time outside, I'm pretty conscientious about having this done.
I'd already been to this doctor before, but of course there is always some sort of paperwork to fill out. Just a couple of signatures and is anything new with my health these days. I looked over the form and did find a new data entry.
Under the Date of Birth line was something I'd never seen before: Date of Death. Very nice. Thanks for offering me the opportunity to ponder my own mortality for a few minutes, Dr. Lin.
Fortunately mine read 00/00/0000.
I returned the form to the receptionist and went back to my seat, thinking how nice it is that my heart is beating.
As I waited for them to call my name, I quickly forgot about mortality and flipped through an issue of Sunset magazine. That is, until an old-guy patient sitting across the room with his own paperwork exclaimed to everyone: "Date of Death?? Hey, look at that. All zeroes! Guess I'm still alive!"
I'm certain that was the first time I've ever seen a room full of people waiting on a doctor laugh together at anything.
The exam went fine. Everything normal. Hopefully me and the old guy will be seeing those zeroes for a long time.
