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.
January 14, 2021 — 6:17 pm
Comments: 18