Written by Yosef Michael on April 19, 2026.

My big toe on my right foot was swollen and in pain for a couple of days, and since I walk a lot. I finally decided to call my doctor to see if I could get a cortisone shot or something else that would make the swelling go down. So, I called the advice nurse to try to get a walk-in appointment, but my doctor had no availability. The advice nurse also checked whether any other doctors were available, but none were. The only option open to me was to drive to the emergency room.

There were two customers ahead of me in line to check in. I was listening to the female clerk ask the people if they had their I.D. and insurance card. Once they had them, the clerk pointed to the scanner on the table and said, “Slide your insurance card in the scanner from right to left with the strip down. She then confirmed their identity and asked them all the other appropriate questions. So, I pulled out both of mine and was prepared before she would ask me anything.

When it was my turn to check in, before the clerk spoke to me, I immediately moved my hand to scan my insurance card. Since she saw me about to scan my insurance card, she didn’t give me the full speech; she merely pointed at the scanner and said, “Strip down.” I mentally thought, “O-kay!” I had put my I.D. up to the glass window she was sitting behind in the booth as I scanned my insurance card. She said, “Thank you!” I put both cards into my wallet, and put it into my pocket.

I was wearing a blue button-down collared shirt, but wasn’t wearing a tie. From the collar down, I had left the first two buttons unfastened. So, I grabbed the third button down with both hands. I mentally thought, “Here I go!” I leaned forward to speak directly into the hole in the window to ensure she would clearly hear what I was about to say, and to prevent the other people sitting in the waiting room directly behind me from hearing what I was about to tell her. I looked her in the eyes, still holding the third button, and, as if I was confirming with her, I asked her, “You want me to strip down?”

I expected her to laugh, but instead she pushed both her hands towards me as if she were pushing on imaginary hand brakes in front of her, and simultaneously said, “No!” and was also shaking her head from right to left, which also means no. My delivery was so convincing, she actually thought that I was ready to strip down butt-naked if she didn’t stop me. She paused for a few seconds, then asked me all the appropriate questions to check me in.

I sat down in the chair that was closest to the check-in station. About ten or twelve minutes later, a different woman walked into the clerk’s office to relieve the first clerk from the check-in duty. The first clerk got up, and I thought she had left, but I was wrong. She had merely stepped a few feet to the left side of the check-in clerk’s booth. Since I thought that she had left, I wasn’t paying attention to the booth. I was listening to music with only one earbud, so I could hear whenever they called my name.

Without any warning, I hear a woman laughing hysterically from the booth. I turn to look at the laughing women. She is staring directly at me, laughing hysterically. Occasionally, she looks to her right for half a second, still laughing hysterically, and looks back at me. This is how I found out that I had been wrong about the first clerk having left. When the laughing clerk finally stopped laughing, I could hear the first clerk say, “I am used to men telling me jokes (flirting), but I was not prepared for that!”

The first clerk’s language was pure, clean, and very nice. She obviously was a very sweet woman. I almost felt bad that I had pranked her that way, but it was funny, and she later realized that I was only messing with her.