Anyone else find it peculiar that in a casual setting it’s impolite to refer to a Doctor as Mister? I was running the other day and ran past the McGrath household and Dr. McGrath was outside. Without thinking about it I said, “Hey, Mr. McGrath.” He said, “Hey Tom.” My first thought was that I’m surprised he recognized it was me because I sort of blind sided him and for someone I see about once a year this was pretty impressive. After the passing, I remembered he was a doctor and wondered if he wondered that I called him Mr. I feel that this is a bit presumptuous to always assume people are going to address you as Dr outside of the workplace. Nobody refers to me as Tom “the Toolman” Taylor (a good Home Improvement reference for those old enough). What makes a Doctor so special? Are they never not being a doctor? From now on I’m just going to start referring to every Doctor as Mr. and see if they correct me. For some reason I wrote this entry thinking it was original but this seems exactly like an episode of Seinfeld or Curb (which I can’t recall but wouldn’t surprise me if it existed).
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