The Splinter

<-- (not my actual finger)

I was shopping at Whole Foods a couple weeks ago on my lunch break. After perusing the apples for a minute, I moved on to the vegetable section. But not before scraping my finger on the splintery wooden fruit crate I was walking past. I looked down to see that a sharp sliver of wood had found its way into the tip of my ring finger. It hurt pretty bad and it was really gross- so I wound the customer service desk and asked the lady for a first aid kit.

The fat woman looked up from the counter, her lips riddled with bread crumbs. "Wha you nee?" she slurred, choking back the bagel she was eating.

"Do you have a first aid kit? I just got a splinter from one of your wooden crates over there and I want to try to get it out with a tweezer if you have one."

The woman looked at me like I was the craziest person she had ever met. After rummaging around for awhile- she produced a flimsy plastic tweezer.

"Here you go guurl."

After my splinter removal attempt failed, I went back to work dejectly. Many other coworkers tried to get it out by squeezing my finger and trying to cut it with scissors. I tried for the next two days to remove it buy using various creams, salts, soaking, tweezing and picking with needles. All of these attempts failed.

By the third day- my finger was not looking so hot. I won't give you the details but let's just say it was gross. I needed a doctor to get the thing out. Yes- how embarassing- a doctor visit for a splinter... but it had to be done.

I don't have medical insurance or a regular doctor so I began the quest of searching for an urgent care doctor in NYC. I know it's hard to believe, but urgent care doctors and medical clinics (that aren't shady) are pretty hard to come by for some reason. My internet search yeilded one reasonable result- Dr. Stuart Lewis, whose office is right next door to mine.

Before I made my appointment, I read reviews of him on citysearch. That's when I came across this post, which is kind of one of the most amazing reviews I've ever seen:

"Great doctor, for about one second. he was also part of my HMO> . female here talking. i knew by the program that he did not do gyn. so i asked him tactfuly what do you do about that. he almost had a breakdown like i mentioned a bad word. he got freaky scared and said i give refferals. like this was to much. so was te fact i was in critical conditions from extremes states of trauma and shock exhaustion in meidcal failure to treat. he basicly acknowledge this and then sat and watched me progres where i became very sick and lost my life long struggle to outwit death over come past medical failures and medical isuues in my life. i wrote him three letters begging him to put me in hosptial to recover. female sensible girl who has a father who was a bad doctor. i also had a genious iq basic common sense. that was why i wrote thre letters rather than if i were john q to get a gun and shoot him. i begged for my life. i became very sick. developed more serois states of a very easily treatable condtion. then the botome fell out. this man could care less . one day i was in apple store. he was bs ing iwith a wman infornt of me. and a girl talking about someone who commited suicide. i wanted to tell the whle store what a @*@*he is. sorry i didnt as my life became so horrible from suffering from this man and others who cared more about ipod than a person. james dorian is not the only creep in soho. and ifeel he wrote the other reviews on this sight becuas he erases all the negative ones.
Pros: nice location nice building office that is. close to soho
Cons: the spa attitude teks wey from the care. ktch more focus on persn not faux"

Um. Yeah. So obvs after reading this, I new Dr. Lewis was the guy for me!! I promptly made an appointment and he saw me the next day.

He was SUPER nice and got my splinter out in less than 10 minutes. It was some kind of miracle I tell you. I did a bell hop off of the doctor's table I was so excited. He only charged me $50 too.

Which just goes to show that contrary to popular belief, not every person who writes reviews for Citysearch is credible. Or sane for that matter.