The planet Mercury is in retrograde, meaning it appears to be traveling backwards in it’s orbit.
Enough of the technical, what does it mean and how do you cope with it? When Mercury is in retrograde, three times a year for about three weeks each, many things happen. Two of which are technology goes haywire, and communications get all shades of funky.
I had the classic Mercury retrograde communication meltdown yesterday. I had a doctors appointment, and I walk up to the check-in counter, announce who I am and who I was there to see. One of the receptionists (I will call her R1) announced “oh no you are not. The doctor is never here on Fridays”. I quickly morphed into a confused, WTF is going on state. In the meantime, the second receptionist (R2) is throwing questions at me faster than Fernando Valenzuela can pitch a baseball. Name. Date of birth. Reason for your visit.
At the same time my assistant is calling to tell me she just opened a letter from the doctors office stating my appointment has been rescheduled for Monday.
Rumor has it that I looked at both receptionists and said “who informs someone through a letter that their appointment has been rescheduled?”
At the same time, R2 continues to throw questions and statements at me faster than I can keep up with, and I begin to short circuit. I think water started slowly leaking from my eyes. R2 stopped being a robot for a moment and noticed I was going into meltdown. She offered to have me sit down while she arranged for the nurse to see me.
Soon, nurse Carol Hathaway appears and whisks me off to an exam room. Nurse Carol is warm, sympathetic, apologetic, and instantly calmed me down. She checked my incision from last weeks surgery, said everything was going great, looking good. She pulled strings and got my original appointment rescheduled for Monday at a time convenient for me, and sent me off feeling like my faith had been restored.
As I was leaving and headed towards the elevators, R1 rushed up to me, apologizing for making me short circuit. She even gave me a big hug.
THAT, my friends, was the classic Mercury retrograde mis-communication experience. I did not recognize it as such until about 4 hours later. Then the light bulb went off.
We have another 4 days or so until Mercury goes back into regular orbit. Be kind to one another and have patience.
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