A recent hospital visit resurrected some old memories - some past encounters with the medical world.  As the current "Great Recession" economy as this book is penned, descends into hell, I am reminded of that other great recession of the 1970s and early '80s - "The Misery Recession."  You know that Rust-belt masterpiece economy, the one which was a poetic precursor to this current crappy-job economy?  For two decades after it happened, especially in the good economy of the 1990s, people only talked about it in hushed whispers - they would usually look over their shoulders as well if the subject was breached.    

    In 1978 I had to buy a small and used Japanese motorcycle (Yamaha 350) to beat the high gas prices of the time.  Ironically, I make the same weekly pay amount now that I did back then.  Welcome to the "New Norm" America - but, I digress. 

    I rode it everywhere.  I drove the shit out of it.  In the winter of '78 - early '79, I drove it to work....all winter in a snowmobile suit from Whitewater to Beloit. It was a furnature delivery job.  I guess in retrospect, I should be glad that in those days, they threw me any job bone at all.  At the time I grew tired of the Monday thru Friday full-time ritual.  Nowadays, I would sign a pact with the Devil to have a reliable job again. But I digress.

    In the fall of 1979 I was driving into Whitewater and a bee blew into my Army jacket collar.  It was that time of the year the bees buzz the trash cans - that time of year they make their last stand just after summer and just before fall. Said bee made its way down my sleeve to the back of my bicep.  Of course, it bit me.  

    In case you have not gleaned from my past scribblings, I do get allergic reactions rather easy.  My genetic blood condition probably does not help that situation.  Suffice it to say that within a few minutes, my arm was as big as my leg.  Mister brain surgery that I was back then, I went home.  I had trouble getting my coat off.  I did not tell anyone I was in trouble - my mom would have had a fit, and my dad might have said, "Walk it off, Bub."  

    Anyway, my Army training left me with enough sense to finally get to a hospital.  There is a hospital in Fort Atkinson (I will not mention which one) that my family had used for decades.  In fact I was born there.  I made my way via the back farm roads from my dad's farm to the hospital...yes, on that motorcycle.  I imagine my route was not so much different than when my dad took my mom up there when my birth was pending.  None-the-less, I made the journey...rather ill by then...to what was then considered their emergency room.  

    I remember some joker in a lab coat met me at a window of sorts.  In my memory, it remends me now of a burger shack drive-through window.  Memory is cruel.  

    "What's your problem?" Joker asked and glowered at me and snickered at my Army jacket.  Joker could not have been more than 30 years old.  I doubt if he was even a nurse; he surely could not have been a doctor; and, I would bet you a drink at the Long Branch saloon of your choice, he sure the fuck was not a veteran.

    "Bee sting," I said, holding my arm by now.  

    "Got insurance?"  Joker asked. 

    "No," I said.  

    At this point I can't quite remember the fee for an ER visit that day.  But, it seemed like 90 Bucks is stuck in my head.  That would have been a small fortune for a mook making 135 Bucks a week.   Hell, 90 Bucks would still bust my balls. 

    As fate would have it, being pre-ATM days, I had run out of the house with no cash or no check book.  

    "Can't help you with out payment," Joker said and looked so ritualistically..., banal. Talk about a dick-head with gatekeeper syndrome...Christ! 

    So, off I rode, back to the house, to get my check book.  By the time I got there, I had to do every thing with the unaffected arm.  By the time I got back to the hospital and the Joker, I had to fill out the check with my non-writing hand.  I don't even remember doing it as I was getting quite light headed by then.  

    Lab Coat Joker gave me an injection with the same lack of enthusiasm of a kid being forced to take out the trash as punishment for some teenage indiscretion.

    Back then, had I passed out and careened into a corn field, perhaps a farmer would have found my bones a few weeks later while picking his corn. Had I died in the hospital parking lot, I feel quite certain the mantra from almost every circle in society would have been something like, "Damn dumb fool.  Should have had his check book with him! "  

    And then later, the cops would have put a ticket on my abandoned motorcycle. 

Note: This blog "Fate Fairies" - book version Category is a work in progress. The original vignettes are being edited for book form. Go to the Cooldadiomedia Web site and the Fate Fairies Page for an ordered chronology of the book vignettes (chapters).