Ziggy Frankel used to say that the health clinic is like life; you know when you come in but you have no idea when you’ll leave. It used to be like that. I remember going for x-rays in Zamenhoff clinic (General Health Program) and coming home six hours later with a sick headache. So for a long time I was doing a super-duper program in Malram where you finish a dozen doctors in three hours and then do a mammogram and then go to work. But this year I’ve gone back to the health clinic, and today went for a mammogram in the spanking new electronic Maccabi building on Yigal Alon Street.
I wasn’t sure about where to turn, so I asked the lady in the car next to me at the light, and she said she too was on her way there and didn’t know so we could get lost together. For a moment I remember the fights people used to get into about their place in line and it occurred to me to figure out how to get there before her and race up to register, but then I remembered that times have changed and people have become just a bit more civilized.
We did get there, although the signs were not to clear because of all the building going on there, and I made it to the reception just in time. There I got onto the assembly line and was finished with the mammogram in 30 minutes, but like another few hazy people, was sent for an ultrasound down the hall. Unlike the previous waiting room which was filled with sympathetic partners, this one had a row of waiting women, most of them looking at the screen with their first names and last initials in the order they would be taken. “Karen,” they called, but I knew it was the karen with the tattooed eye makeup and not me, so I stayed seated as another woman came running up the aisle shouting, “That’s me! “I’m Karen too.” “No,” said the woman next to me who was crocheting a pink and turquoise baby coverlet.”There is order here for everyone.” “Just take it easy,” the woman in a white head scarf added, “When there are clear guidelines for everyone, you can relax.”
In fifteen minutes I was dressed and heading home. Unlike life, the health clinic is best enjoyed when the duration is short.
To answer your question George – yes – i was writing a story with a little moral
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