A Tale in Two Versions

Barton and I have been flushing out our new blog on www.loverollson.wordpress.com, a place where we talk about the adventures in our relationship. The response to it has been phenomenal, and we have received many comments about how we stagger our stories in a "he said, she said" manner. While this may seem cliche, of course I won't remember everything that happened, and Barton doesn't either. Then we also have the husband/wife factor that plays into our stories as well.

When crazy things happen- like last week when the bus Barton was riding caught on fire. I got home, Barton had this mischievous smile, "You're gonna love this- the bus caught on fire." And while his smile grew from the excitement, I went into wife overdrive, "Are you okay?? What happened??"

So how does this apply to you or your business? Perspective is like one dot on a sphere, so there are an infinite number of slices or angles to an event or situation. Take a step back and evaluate, where are you on the sphere?

Below is an example from our blog, and while it may be lengthy, Barton and I contribute different pieces of information in different styles. How does this affect your picture of our story?

Life Insurance is Hazardous to Your Health, Megan's Version

I told this story the other day, and it’s just too funny to keep to ourselves. So a couple of years ago when we first started to call different adoption agencies, just to even inquire about their adoption process and requirements, one of the first questions we were asked was if we both had life insurance. We knew we needed to get all of our paperwork in order since adoption is a legalized process, so we began researching life insurance for both Barton and I. Our agent spent a long time researching the best options for us at the most economical fees.

Not only do you fill out the application, but a nurse also comes to your house to get a medical history, accurate height/weight, blood sample, etc. While the volunteers that do this are not nurse practitioners, they have been trained- for the standard family anyway. Barton and I are anything but standard.

So when the woman came over, she was overly concerned about Barton standing on the scale. “Is he okay?” she asked about four times in a row in a trilly patronizing voice. You know me- I just threw Barton up on the scale, so she could read the numbers off.

Now you have to realize that Barton’s old chair had three speeds- walking, running and blast through the house protect the family from bad guys speed. (His new one has two speeds of which he named Peace & Combat).

The nurse kneeled down to read the scale and rested her hand on Barton’s wheelchair. As she stood up, the volunteer, not only flipped the switch to turn on the chair, but changed the speed to torpedo and pushed the joystick forward, blasting the chair into the refrigerator.
Now Barton did let out a yell, of which she thought he was hurt, but it was actually to stop her because he was concerned she would move it again, over us, and we’d all be in trouble. Only the refrigerator received a slight bruise, and believe it or not, nothing even fell off the top.

I have never seen anyone get so red in the face, apologize so many times and run out of our house so fast- it was definitely a Shrek moment.

Bless her little heart, she called two or three times just to make sure we were okay, and also to tell us we could go to a general practitioner for the rest of Barton’s exam. Now I did feel little bad because we had a good laugh over it, many times over.

If this is the beginning of our journey, the rest will definitely be an adventure.


Life Insurance is Hazardous to Your Health, Barton's Version

Pardon me, for having what some might consider high expectations, however, when we were told that we were going to receive from a nurse to do our medical history and some basic health tests to apply for life insurance, I assumed that this “nurse” would be a well-qualified medical professional. After all, all of the nursing programs I had ever heard of gave people a minimum of Masters or an equivalent there of. How was I to know that the nurse that we were to receive a visit from was the medical equivalent of a rental cop.

I assumed for most of her visit that she had much more experience, and therefore understanding then in fact was the case. When we sat down to the medical history, everything seemed quite normal. She even understood me without Megan’s interpretation for most of the conversation. This only fermented my belief in her professionalism. The first time, however, that something was amiss was when, after pulling out the scale and asking the best way to take my height and weight. She gave Megan a questioning look, almost as though there was some disbelief that I could safely get out of my chair.

As I stood up on the scale, I thought I had said to be careful of the controls or perhaps I didn’t, making an assumption that a nurse would have been around wheelchairs before and thus would know that the joystick makes the contraption move. Was this too bold of an assumption? I regret to say that it was, and no sooner than she bent down to read the scale, did my wheelchair go careening full speed ahead into the refrigerator as she attempted to use the joystick to stabilize herself. As Megan said, unsure that she was aware of the potential to severely hurt herself, I let out a full body yell trying to stop her in her tracks, which only rattled her more.

Once we were recollected, and I was back in my chair, I knew that she had yet to draw my blood. As she began to pack the files of records, I assumed that she was getting ready to take the blood samples, so I suggested the best way for her to do this. But this only got a blank stare.

A couple seconds later, and she registered what I had said and looked at me like I was nuts. And when her shock wore off, she was getting frantic and said, “I have to go” about five times in twenty seconds. She threw her bag over her shoulders and tore frantically through the front door never to be seen by us again.