He Has Given Us a Sign

Nothing to do with Monty Python, but a tale of two signs I saw yesterday. Having hobbled bravely (not complaining but just getting on with it) with the aid of a knee brace and (occasionally) a walking stick for the last month I finally went to the doctor's yesterday.

It was, as always, full of nosey old people wondering what was wrong with each other. Having exhausted the supply of magazine (fancy Franco dying?) my attention was drawn to a sign on the wall which read

“Out of respect for your fellow patients please do not open the door to the doctor's surgery if it is firmly closed”

and thanked the Lord that it was knackered knees and not my prostate that I was there for.

Anyway, if your doctor's a little like mine, with all the sympathy and bedside manner of Arnie's Terminator, you can lighten the proceedings by prefixing every sentence with Doctor, doctor.......

So, then I had to go to San Antonio health centre to make an appointment for an X-Ray. There are two counters there, one with a big sign APPOINTMENTS and another with a similar sign MEDICAL CARDS. At the appointments counter they asked to see my medical card as proof of my entitlement to free medical treatment here in Ibiza.

'I haven't got it. When it expired I went to the next counter to renew it and after only three months the new card still hasn't arrived at my house.'

'You'll need it when you go for your X-Ray.'

'When?'

'December 19th!'

'OK, I'll go to the MEDICAL CARD counter now and sort it.'

Later, at the MEDICAL CARD counter.........
'Oh no, this isn't the medical card counter it's the EMERGENCIES counter. Medical cards are in a morning, emergencies in an afternoon.'

So remember, if you're on a purely administrative visit to the health centre, go before lunchtime, and if you're dashing in with say, your severed arm under your non-severed arm, then you'll be running around like a chicken with a severed head unless it's round about tea-time!