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Clap for the NHS, my ass

Let me tell you a story about the NHS.

I get my blood pressure meds from the pharmacy attached to my local clinic. Since the onset of covid, you don’t go in the building to access the drugs, they serve you from one of the 3 windows facing the parking lot.

On the window is a sign: please knock.

Today, as I walked up to this window, I made eye contact with one of the pharmacists inside. So I think to myself, “she saw me, no need to knock, I’ll let her finish what she’s doing.”

And I wait. And I wait. It is the middle of January and it’s lightly drizzling. I am not a young woman. I am gray of hair and wrinkled of visage.

And still I wait. I have now made brief eye contact with two of the three pharmacists working inside, all of whom can easily see there’s a person standing there. In the rain.

If I knock now, I think, it’ll look like I’m trying to rush them, since it’s obvious I’m here. I still don’t quite believe what I suspect is happening.

After a while, an elderly man joins me in the queue, six foot behind, naturally. A while after that, an elderly woman joins behind him. We are three old people standing in the Winter’s rain.

Now I’m kinda mad, but I’m also socially awkward. A better woman would have made a fuss, I know that, but I am a coward. I turn to the man behind me and say, “you try.”

He goes up, knocks on the window, gets served instantly. After which they serve me and the other old woman.

The sign said knock, comrade.

There are people who are loving this new world of rules and procedures. I hope some form of polite society survives them.

Comments


Comment from God’s middle finger
Time: January 14, 2021, 8:16 pm

so which is the way forward? people are debating it here in the states and i’m not so sure there is a way forward without separation. too many brainwashed comrades. do you think there’s a way without red red krovvy and droogs?


Comment from S. Weasel
Time: January 14, 2021, 8:56 pm

Every time they have relaxed the rules, even a little, most people in my area have quickly dropped right back into their old habits, for the most part. Maybe more hand sanitizer than the old normal.

I’m convinced that’s why they keep locking down again.


Comment from Skandia Recluse
Time: January 14, 2021, 9:03 pm

There is a scene in the first “Men in Black” movie where the alien is wearing an Edgar suit, standing at a counter with one of those cute little silver bells on the countertop. The alien in the Edgar suit dings the bell … ding … ding … ding … ding provoking the human behind the counter to exclaim “Enough, Thank you.”

So I’m in town one day, and stop to visit with my then girlfriend, soon to be ex-girlfriend, at her place of employment as a receptionist. There was a cute little silver bell on the counter top.

Of course I dinged, the bell … ding … ding … ding. My soon to be ex-girlfriend says, ‘Stop that.’ So I did just as a woman, just past middlin’ age, reaches the reception area. “I told him,” my soon to be ex-girlfriend said.

I enjoyed every second of it, still do. Am I a bad person?


Comment from Mark Matis
Time: January 14, 2021, 10:31 pm

Next time you go there, take one of those “cave man clubs” from yesterday and knock with that!!!


Comment from Some Vegetable
Time: January 14, 2021, 10:40 pm

I have a method for people like that :

When they finally finish (wait till after they’ve finished!) doing whatever you need, just say –

“You did that well, and all by yourself! I’m so proud of you!”

When they ask what the hell you’re talking about, you say-

“Oh, you’re not handicapped? Oh. When it took you so long, I just assumed – ah sorry, I’d better run now…..”


Comment from RushBabe
Time: January 15, 2021, 5:29 am

Chicago & NYC pols are getting antsy. They realize if they do not soon reopen, there will be nothing left to open. Chicago is also threatening teachers who don’t show up with firings.

Slow Joe Stalin and his Barack Obama 3.0 administration are not going to have an easy time of it. Their own side has had enough of this.


Comment from durnedyankee
Time: January 15, 2021, 9:35 am

It’s all good, we’re going to save the country with a $15.00 minimum wage.

Pikers! They should just raise it to $100 an hour! Then everyone would have lots of money!


Comment from durnedyankee
Time: January 15, 2021, 2:04 pm

How about next time you go there, just knock without wanting anything.

and when they get huffy, point out you’re just doing what the signed asked.

Well, of course later they’ll remember you and… but how is that worse then them ignoring you now.


Comment from AliceH
Time: January 15, 2021, 4:17 pm

Anyone else remember the short story “Pigs is Pigs”?


Comment from durnedyankee
Time: January 15, 2021, 8:04 pm

Ya know, there was a time when our “leaders” would have gotten in front of “the mob” and stood like men.
Try to imagine Andy Jackson hiding under his desk.


Comment from Pupster
Time: January 16, 2021, 1:00 am

I’d knock like THUNDER next time, dear Stoat. This story angered me to no end.


Comment from Cantharkmycry
Time: January 16, 2021, 2:47 am

AliceH: Yes! 🙂 x 2!


Comment from Teej
Time: January 16, 2021, 3:17 pm

People still write “think pieces” about How could the country of Beethoven and Schiller have possibly turned to Nazism? Where were the Good Germans?
There. Right there, demanding you follow the rules. Humans love that scheisse. Any little opportunity to Gauleiter it over someone else…


Comment from durnedyankee
Time: January 16, 2021, 11:55 pm

@Teej – the Milgram experiment proved it wasn’t exclusively a “German” thing after all.

Turns out on average more than half of us rely on what hubby calls the Nuremburg Defense – “I vas only vollowing ze orders”.


Comment from Teej
Time: January 17, 2021, 1:42 am

Durned, exactly!


Comment from durnedyankee
Time: January 18, 2021, 12:48 pm

Wheezy! A 2021 project for y’all!

https://www.dailymail.co.uk/femail/article-9143965/Chicken-owners-reveal-inventive-pen-designs.html

Cirque de Poulet – heh.


Comment from S. Weasel
Time: January 18, 2021, 8:54 pm

Durned, my chicken yard is like the Somme. It’s rained so much here, it’s a standing lake.


Comment from durnedyankee
Time: January 18, 2021, 10:36 pm

Somme…Somme

Wasn’t that some ancient history fight where the English Bee-feathers under Prince Andrew The Only Friend of Jeffery Epstein attacked a bunch of French wine drinkers after a wild night of underage partying?

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