Where does all of the paper go?

I had to take a couple of the kids in for immunizations today. I admit that I was late for my appointment. I had forgotten their shot record, and this is the first time I have taken them to the health dept. instead of the doctor's office. They had asked me to come in five minutes early, and I didn't. I had timed this appointment to efficiently take as little of the school day as possible, so it was right at 3:00, and the kids get out of school at 3:15. I knew I would be a bit late to pick up the kids, but not bad. It seemed like a good plan.

I had not factored in how much time it would take to fill out endless forms. A medical history, a financial statement, an address form, a privacy statement, etc. All that for two shots? I finally got into the examination room with the nurse, who got to fill out her part of the forms, which took another 10 minutes. She apologized for all of the paperwork, and I commented that we were in the middle of an adoption so we knew all about paperwork.

It makes me wonder how much time and money we could save if we figured out how to live without forms for everything. We have children in Ethiopia waiting for their parents to show up for court with the proper form. Isn't the fact that they traveled all day and are right there good enough? Why is it of dire importance that there be a cover letter from MOWA in every case? Why do I have to sign a paper that says I read a paper that says no one else can read the rest of these papers? I'm sure some bureaucrat would give me a long detailed intelligent sounding reason why we have to have all of this. It does appear that common sense has been swallowed up in all of the red tape. I am starting to believe that paper makes the world go round. If we didn't have well paid paper pushers our civilization would crumble. I do have a nagging feeling that if we cut the number of forms required for every appointment within our government we could probably save a few billion dollars, not to mention years of waiting.

So, I picked up my kids at 4:00. The actual shots took less than two minutes. Sheesh