people keep foprgetting social conventions,
or what's apparently known as
the "failing" national health service...
well...
it's already demeaning that
the receptionist is required to wear
a dog collar with a: my name is...
but to excuse yourself without
introducing a social norm of cordiality
with a: good morning?
i.e. jumping queue straight into a function
of a human being?
as an automaton?
north street medical care,
infamous in how hard it is to get an appointment
to see a medical bureaucrat (i.e.
a general practitoner - g.p.) -
i just walked in, haven't seen my g.p.
in over two years...
and i asked for a message to be
passed...
i say to her: i'm leaving on the 22nd
to visit my grandparents to paint their kitchen...
she says she can't squeeze me in,
tells me i have to come back tomorrow and
book an appointment...
and then a change of heart...
5 minutes later i have a face-to-face
appointment with my Sikh bodyguard...
proud to say my beard is longer
than his...
i walk in 10 minutes late
and he's still wondering why i dare to mention
spaghetti cognition, or why i don't like
to talk about my ills, rather succumbing to
the ease of writing about it...
i says to him:
you know, sometimes past noon,
thinking in itself because debilitating,
with such a psychological exhaustion
i tend to entertain a body, in lethargy...
so he says i should take my
notes to a psychiatrists...
problem is... these "notes" have become
published work, in a town in a land in a people
who took me seriously...
just for kicks i'll visit her...
oh, she was big, she did a doc. on
r. d. laing... dr. moncrieff...
****... one of those
anne sexton / john berryman moments...
so i sat down, and watched as 3 patients
were turned down from an appointment...
one even exclaimed in: shock & disbelief
that she was turned down...
hardly the charm offensive,
all i said i said softly, quietly,
with a good morning to allow me entry...
pigeon farts...
or: it would only be deemed
lucky if a trafalgar ***** took a ****
on me if i were wearing a top hat...
bingo!
all it takes it a bit of tact...
saying good morning to a receptionist,
who is paranoid about a.i. receptionists...
as i am paranoid about
automated phone-centre cut-backs...
not even proud blue Indians of the Raj
behind that blind curtain...
because does language
always has to revolve around verbs?
how can the tongue be equal to
but less than a limb?
imagine the para-olympics
with deaf people...
who shoots what to make
a false start?!
a biology teacher
once told a whole class that
your sense of balance is in your ears,
rather than in your eyes...
two weeks later, a moderate muslim
that she was, she puts on a hijab in
a catholic school... hey presto!
we have our first nun-morph!
charmer... well... the petrol station
manager talked with a thick
Bombai accent,
we exchanged cordialities...
good day sir, good day that,
bought a bottle of fizzy water,
forgot to buy a cup of coffee...
good day, hope you have a good day,
how's your day coming along, yada yada yada...
but there is still a social convention,
an agreement:
not even akin to:
i wash your back, you wash mine...
more on the lines of:
you don't get in my way,
i don't get in yours.
savey?
how simple a respect for a receptionist
becomes,
to merely introduce yourself with
a good morning,
like some old retired **** of a man
creaking with arthritis...
but rules are rules...
and approaching someone
with some grand: you need to do this for
me attitude, gets you the undesired
revolving door, of barking up the wrong tree!
patience is all but left,
when all other virtues have been exhausted;
patience is not a virtue,
it's what you might call a razor
when hanging off a cliff's edge;
as the proverb goes:
a drowning man will resort to
grabbing a razor to stay afloat:
patience is not a virtue:
it's the last resort.
