Surprise, surprise, they have done away with appointments and everything is done on a drop-in basis. This is of course the patients' fault for not keeping their appointments. So I drop in and wait for an hour before I can see the nurse. I very properly tell her that I've started taking a new prescription medication since the last jab. She tells me that in that case I will have to see the doctor instead.
Another hour's wait and the doctor, naturally, just looks the damn drug up in the Big Book O'Pills. Surely the nurses can read, whatever their faults? And meanwhile it has been discovered that I last had a smear test three years ago, and they're due every three years, and how handy that here I am in a Women's Health centre.
So without the slightest chance to psych myself up for it, I am subjected to an incredibly intrusive personal examination which will probably have to be redone anyway because I always bleed a bit when the Depo's wearing off.
All in all it was the perfect excuse to try out the Strawberries and Dream McFlurry at McDonald's, which I've been hankering after since a market research droid snagged me outside The 99p Store on Saturday and made me watch an ad for it on her laptop.
I got what I wanted, got it almost instantly, and got it mixed by hand as the machine wasn't working. I believe that's The State 0: global capitalism 1.