I had a doctor's appointment today. (I have a sinus infection. Whee. I liked the one I had in December so much I decided to have it again.) As I think I have previously mentioned, here in Maine for the last few years, the state Department of Health and Human Services requires medical providers to ask various irrelevant-seeming personal questions of patients during the preliminary workup phase. They don't run down the whole list at once any more like they used to; now it's like they get a random selection of two or three they have to drop into the usual data set they always collect (what meds you're on, etc).

In the past, I've been asked such gems as "do you feel safe at home?", "do you chew tobacco?" (this was in the middle of the billing questions with the receptionist, not even when I was talking to the nurse), and "have you been to West Africa in the last six months, or had sex with anyone who had been to West Africa within the six months before you banged?" (I may have rephrased that last one slightly.)

This time, the One of These Things Is Not Like the Others question, asked in between the meds list and whether I smoke, was, "At any point in the last six months, have you worried that there might not be enough food?"

"Oh, absolutely," I said. "I worry about that a lot, actually. Between the way the population is spiking and the inevitable impact of climate change on agricultural yields, we're almost certainly in for a worldwide Malthusian nightmare sometime before 2050, and do you think there's anything like the political will to do anything about it in time? Because I don't."

"... At home," the nurse clarified patiently.

"Oh. No. Not right now."

--G.
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Benjamin D. Hutchins, Co-Founder, Editor-in-Chief, & Forum Mod
Eyrie Productions, Unlimited http://www.eyrie-productions.com/
zgryphon at that email service Google has
Ceterum censeo Carthaginem esse delendam.

Ebony the Black Dragon

"Life is like an anole. Sometimes it's green. Sometimes it's brown. But it's always a small Caribbean lizard."

All I get is "And how have you been feeling lately?"

"Not too good, doc. That's why I'm here."

--sofaspud
--alternatively, "like crap" is another answer, but still.