Is that phlegm you just sprayed on my arm, or are you just glad to see me?

I hate to come off as an ingrate, after all ,as shitty as the V A Medical Center is, and trust me on this, it is, at least it's something. I'll also spare you the Military Veteran speech, it's not like I was stomping through rice fields in Indochina, or fighting off camel spiders in the Iraq desert. I was in the Coast Guard, the most dangerous thing I ever did was bang hippy chicks in the mid 1970's without a condom, while stationed in the wilderness outpost of Alameda California. That said, I loathe going to the V A, smashing my balls with a small mallet would only be slightly less enjoyable. For starters, it's full of sick people, and the sickest of the bunch always seems to hone in on me, bringing his sick, coughing ass over to where I'm sitting, ignoring the dozens of other seats farther away from me. Anyway, I'm sitting next to some guy who isn't wearing socks, who the fuck doesn't wear socks when it's 39 degrees outside? That shit went out with Miami Vice. So sockless guy is sitting next to me oozing snot, coughing his sockless ass off, and he reaches over and taps me on the arm to ask me what time it is. For starters, I don't have a watch on, and there's a fucking clock right across the room that Stevie Wonder could read. I don't like strangers touching me, especially a walking germ factory. My first instinct is to spray him in the face with the antibacterial gel I've got stashed in my coat, my second instinct is to slap the taste out of his mouth, I opt for option number 3, I point to the clock as I move to the far side of the room.


An hour and 45 minutes into my wait, a nurse comes out and reads my name like she just started getting hooked on phonics. It's the first time anyone has ever stumbled over my name, it's not like Mark Smith is foreign or anything, regardless, she manages to make it come out sounding like I just stepped off a fuckin banana boat or something. So they weigh me in, take my blood pressure, and ask me whats wrong. Now let me just say, I'm not one of those bloggers who feels the need to share every physical malady with my readers, but just this once I'll go there, mostly because it's not super disgusting, although it sounds as fucked up as a soup sandwich simply because it's generally considered an old peoples thing. I've got shingles, or at least Doctor Google says I do. I always try to diagnose myself through Google prior to putting my life in the hands of someone who can't say Mark Smith without butchering it. My leg was sensitive as hell for a few days, then I got a few little blisters, I concluded that I'd been struck down with shingles. So we do the blood pressure, temp, thing and she tells me I can see a Physicians Assistant, not a doctor, not a nurse practitioner but, a P. A. And lucky me I can see this P.A. at 3 today.

I live close enough to the V A that I didn't have to sit around waiting for someone to spit the SARs virus in my eye, so I came back here to bitch and moan, while I wait. But what about the old man in the wheelchair, oxygen tubes in his nose? Well, he is going to have to wait around the bacteria frappe and hope he doesn't catch something that will kill his already sickly ass. There are decorated veterans who are subjected to this shit on a daily basis, and it's a travesty. If there was ever a case study , one that looked at the viability of Government run health care, the researchers need look no farther than the V A. It is a cluster fuck of incompetence and ineptitude on a grand scale. The walk from the far end of the parking lot is enough to kill you if you aren't in good health. In fact, the parking lot, which is huge, is routinely so full that patients have to park a quarter mile away in a church parking lot and get shuttled in.

So I'll be going back into the hot zone in a few hours, to get a script for some antibacterial meds, two trips in one day for a simple thing. And here is the rub, my dog received better, and quicker medical attention from the Vet, than most people will get at the V A. Three weeks ago, Max was in almost total kidney failure, the vet gave me meds to pump down him. Now three weeks later he is in top form, eating top sirloin, and chasing any squirrels ballsy enough to cross our fence line. Meanwhile there is some old man, retired military, sitting in a waiting area packed with hundreds of sick people, and that's how his day will be spent. Government run health care is a myth, it's a unicorn, it doesn't exist now, and there is no way it can in the future. The operative word is Care, that word implies a persons health will be cared for, taken care of and with. It's not happening now at the V A, so how is it going to happen if there are millions and millions lining up for it?
Okay, I'm done.

The pics are of me in full bacterial defensive mode, and that's a cigarette, not a joint.
The overflow sign in the packed parking lot.
And Max, eating top sirloin, hand fed in small bites, because the vet told me to feed it to him, and now he won't eat anything else.