"Good Things are Coming"

I stared down at the carefully written chalk letters on the sidewalk under my feet.  I was on a walk during my break, and I wondered why someone wrote such a message.

I continued on my way.

"Good Things are Coming"

'Are they?'  I asked myself as I rounded the corner to head around the block and head back toward my office.  'Are they really?'  It's so hard to be positive sometimes.  I'll admit, I felt a little irritated at the blind, uninformed, and baseless hopeful message.  'How could you know?  You don't know.'

"Good Things are Coming"

I walked into the parking lot of my office building, and I saw someone leaving the place.  The man's face was red, he wore a frown, and he stormed across the parking lot to his car.  I caught a glimpse of a wadded piece of paper in his hand.

'Lab bill.'  I know that blue, yellow and white form well.  I am the guy patients come to when they have a dispute, or when there's an error.  The sidewalk prognosticator was wrong.  This was like the opposite of a good thing.

"Excuse me, sir?"  I flagged the man down as he's about to get into his beat up Toyota.  "Did someone help you?"

"No," he growled.  He held the bill up, presumably so I could see, but he shook it around so much I couldn't read it.  "Nobody in there knows what to do, and now even with my insurance, I've got a six hundred dollar bill for my lab tests."  He shook his head.  "I never would have agreed to get them if I knew how much they'd cost."  I noticed that the man was dressed in clean, but worn clothes.  His hands were wide from years of manual labor of some sort.  I got it.  He was someone who couldn't afford that cost.

"Well, can I ask you to come back inside?"  I stepped forward and extended my hand.  "I'm Wayne.  I'm our Lab Manager.  Maybe there's a way I can help you with this."

He blinked, then he gripped my hand.  "Gerald."  From that distance I saw the worry on his face.  "I really hope you can help, because I don't know how I'll pay it."

I took him inside and up to my office.  We sat, and I looked through his chart, dug up his financial information that we had on file.  Turned out there was an error when he was registered and his insurance wasn't correct.  After some phone calls with his updated insurance information, the amount he owed on his lab bill dropped to $72.

I walked him out to his car.  There, he shook my hand again.  "Thank you."  I could tell he was relieved.  "You turned a terrible day into a good one.  So, thank you."

I waved and smiled as he drove away.  I turned to go back into the building, and then realization slammed into me and I barked a laugh.

"Good Things are Coming"