The 211

As a responsible citizen, it is my duty not to leave the house if I have even the symptoms of swine flu. At least, not leave the house for work. So I called 211 because the CDC's site did not make it clear whether or not you have to have all the symptoms or just some of them.

My operator, Janet, was pleasant enough. I asked my question, she said she could put me in touch with someone who could answer my question, came back on the line, and I heard her talking to herself:

type, type, type"let's see. No. Hmmmm. Let me try. No. I guess it's S-W-I. Okay, I can give you the number for your local health department. Hmmmm. What's your zip code? Just a minute."

While waiting, I google the number and jot it down.

Janet comes back with "I can give you the number for Aurora Medical Center. 288-2000. But before you go, I need to ask you for some information. Good, this is where my tax dollars will be well placed. She is going to ask me for my symptoms, travel patterns, and personal information before entering it into a database. Then it would just be a matter of time before they ran the alogorhythm and called me back to let me know when to quarantine myself.

But all she wanted to know was "where did you hear about us?" And all I got by dialing 288-2000? "We're sorry, the number you dialed is no longer in service."

I'd be less paranoid if we weren't so close to the epicenter.

Comments

[M]

If that wasn't a conversation with grandma, it could have been?

[here]

comment,