A speculum in the ear

My most demanding patient would have to be my wife. Last night she mentioned to me that her ear had been hurting her and she wanted me to take a look. I had to charge my otoscope so I could look in her ear. Of course we forgot about it until we were in bed. Once I was all warm and cozy, that's when she insisted that I look in her ear. Being the good wife that I am, I dragged my ass out of bed to gather my tools. Before I could even look in her ear, she starts her whining - "don't put it in too far", "it's going to hurt", "no don't do it". She made me get out of bed, I was now determined to look in her ear. Of course her ear ended up being totally normal but she freaked out when I put the otoscope in her ear and started giggling like a 5 year old (in her defense the only ear speculum that I had at home was a small one and thus I did put in quite far) and also when I insufflated (shooting a little puff of air into her ear canal to check for the normal movement of the ear drum). She was also majorly amused by the fact that those little things that go on the end of the otoscope to look into one's ears are called speculums. Apparently she thought that was a word reserved for the device used to look in one's vagina. See even you are are not actively cycling, you still have speculums stuck in you.

In continuing this week's theme of bitching about patients, I had this mom several weeks ago who was very upset because my rooms were not stocked to her likings. I must have been running a few minutes behind because when I walked in, she told me "Dr. F, I have one complaint. In the old days you would take your kid to the doctor and if you had a cut on your hand you would take a few band-aids while you waited and some packets of vaseline for the diaper bag or anything else that you needed. But your rooms have nothing useful and it's very upsetting. I have gone through all of your drawers and I couldn't find so much as a diaper or band-aid". I honestly thought this mom was joking - are you fucking for real? (And there were diapers in there, she just didn't look carefully enough) To make matters worse, she was really upset and kind of yelling at me for this. I tried to calmly explain that in the interest of keeping insurance premiums down and to provide good health care my rooms are stocked with the items that I need to practice medicine and not necessarily the items that she currently needs to stock up on. I seriously wanted to point her down the street to the nearest walgreens. I did ask her if she had a cut and told her that I could go get her a band-aid but she said no, she just wanted some band-aids for her purse. OMG- are you fucking for real lady? I just can't imagine her nerve. Am I way out of line here? Do you all expect this kind of shit when you go to the doctors office?