"Absolutely not," I reply, sitting on wax paper wearing nothing more than a paper towel.
She's already conducted a hostile takeover of my ears gleefully ripping wax out with an instrument invented by the Nazis.
My affectionate response is calling her an illegitimate daughter of a dog.
Smiling she lubes her gloved finger and tells me to turn over and hug my knees to my chest.
After I land she hugs me and informs me about my next appointment.
"I won't be here," I explain.
"It's the power of the pen," she smiles holding her ink pen from the white Doctor's coat. "You have to come back so I can write the prescription for the drugs you need to keep on living."
"Not at all," I say pulling my black running shorts back up. "Did they teach you about Canada in Medical School?"
Fear creeps across her face.
"I can get whatever I need out of Canada ... for a LOT CHEEPER THAN AMERICAN DRUGS ... and I don't even need your damn prescription."
Pulling my UGA tee shirt with spaghetti stains on it, she sits beside me on the cold metal table.
"How much does it cost?" she asks.
I tell her.
"Damn," she spits, "they're under cutting us bad."
"We love it," I tell her. "It's like a game ... order from Canada then guess which country your drugs come from ... Sarah and I just laugh when they arrive from ... India, Germany, France, Africa ... even Cuba."
"Cuba?" she seems shocked.
"You get your news from mainstream media?" I ask putting my arm around her shoulder.
That was over a month ago.
I receive a letter from her office ... a Memorial Health Physicians Practice ... explaining that I missed my appointment ... they understand life gets in the way ... please reschedule immediately ... so they can continue making money.
"They just wasted money," I tell myself. "I already told them I wasn't coming back. Why did they send me a letter?"
And that's the problem with the American Health Care system.
It is not customer friendly and certainly doesn't understand we have alternatives.
"You need this?" Sarah asks holding up the letter.
"No," I answer.
She throws it away.
"Did you tell them we no longer have the land line?"
Grinning devilishly I reply, "I did not."
"That's probably why you didn't get the reminder call from the Doctors."
Sarah always says "Doctors" ... in the plural ... as it's all a conspiracy.
"Damn," I say. "I hate that. I can't believe I forgot."
We both burst into laughter.
