Some of the stuff that pops into one’s head is often unconnected with what is happening around one at the time.
Yesterday, I was sitting in a hospital waiting room for the second anti-Covid jab when I noticed three not very clean-looking boys wandering around the corridors off the waiting area. They looked about 10 years old each. One had a mixture of fair and dark hair. Perhaps it was a tonsorial experiment with household bleach that had gone wrong. They wore drab-coloured T-shirts and torn denims, which could indicate a fashion statement or poverty. (The distinction between rich and poor is blurred these days.) A portly woman in a blue overall was cleaning the floor with a squeegie and a cloth that might have been clean when Ramses was a lad. She shouted at the boys, telling them to leave immediately. A middle-aged man in a shabby, dark brown uniform with pairs of yellow stripes on the shoulders approached the shouting cleaner and the boys. He told them to go as well. The boys ignored him. The man’s command grew louder, attracting the attention of everyone in the waiting area. The boys disappeared.
How these pre-pubescent strangers sneaked past two other dark-brown uniformed men at the gate is a mystery. Perhaps these officials were distracted by a visitor whose name was being entered into a ledger without a hard cover. One cannot enter hospital premises without someone wanting to know your name. The boys were shorter than everyone else in the waiting area. They were quieter than the obese gent who was bawling into his mobile. I honestly do not know why people bother with sophisticated electronic devices. They can stand in the street and holler in the direction of the person with whom they wish to communicate. Consider the job creation potential for people with booming voices. You could tell a vocal individual that your relative in Alexandria desperately wants to hear from you. The extreme shouter can relay your message, all for less than the going rate for phone calls at any time of day.
Eventually, more dark-brown clad security officials emerged from the corridors and apprehended the boys, who were as impudent as they were with the cleaner. Mr Decibel interrupted his phone call to tell the youngsters to do as they were told. If those boys were bored and wanted to play a game: let’s go to the hospital and annoy someone, they succeeded.
Then it was quiet. As I looked at the smooth burgundy columns and the marble floor, a strange thing came into my head. ‘It’s a funny old world we live in,/But the world ain’t entirely to blame.’ These are the opening lines of a song that was popular in the late 19th century. It was probably written by a Londoner as the “ain’t” is a dead giveaway.
My musings on music hall songs of the 1890s were interrupted by the screech of metal of marble. A set of three metal seats was in front of a column, apart from all the other seats, which were against the walls of the rectangular waiting area. A woman with a shopping bag was about to sit when another cleaner told her not to because the seats had to be moved to take their place against the wall like the others. Order must prevail. Recalcitrant seats will be placed where the clear says so, hence the scream of steel on smooth stone.
An elderly gentleman plucks up the courage to ask a security person where to register. An interrogation ensues. Why didn’t you say so at the gate? Have you come for a first injection? Why didn’t you say? Did you just walk in here on your own, then? The name is entered on the list. The dark-brown uniformed man strides away purposefully, as if he has performed a task over and above the call of duty. The old man should register at the gate. Why don’t people do as they are told? Don’t they know anything? Meanwhile, the old man turns to the couple on his right and tells them that the last time he came in here it wasn’t like this. Last time I came in that way and no one asked me anything. I just showed my paper and that was that. I went up…And so on.
Three years ago, my wife and I were in a waiting area in a hospital in Portsmouth, UK. It was 10.30. We told the receptionist what the problem was and we were asked to take a seat. Three minutes later, we were summoned to the presence. ‘That’s quick,’ I thought. Perhaps there is hope for the British National Health Service. Alas, no. The person who had power over all living things and channels of communication said “someone” could see us “at 5pm”. My wife suddenly recovered from her ailment and we left forty or so other people waiting.
Maybe waiting should be an Olympic sport. Indeed, most of us have been thoroughly trained in doing nothing for an inordinate length of time for someone to do you a service that would take a matter of seconds.
However, within 40 minutes I had been given my second coronavirus shot and a card in English with the falcon stamp to prove it. for that, I am truly grateful.
‘It’s a funny old world we live in,/But the world ain’t entirely to blame.’
