Day 112: How is this fair?

My Project: 365 Creative Writing Prompts

Day 112: How is this fair?

I’m sick, or rather, I was sick, I got better and now I’m sick again. It’s only a cold, but I feel terrible. A head filled with cotton wool, watery eyes, a stuffed nose, a raspy throat, and limbs that seem to made of flannel.

How did this happen? My guess is my dear son came home with germs. He started sniffing and sneezing and I knew it was only a matter of time before his germs paid me a visit. Sure enough, 24 hours later I was sniffing and sneezing too.

While he got over his cold fairly quickly, it took me days to feel like my old self again. Yesterday I finally felt better and went out to have my health card renewed.

I had checked the list of what I needed to have this card renewed and I gathered the following:

Existing health card

3 original identification documents from the Ontario health coverage document list

1 to prove citizenship/immigration status

1 to prove residency in Ontario

I had all that and thought I had it covered, but I was wrong. For proof of residency, I had taken with me a Visa bill with my address on it. At the office, though I was told that a Visa bill is not acceptable. Well, that was a problem because I have no other paperwork.

We are constantly told to save the environment and to switch from paper to electronic forms. But now that I did, and don’t receive anything in paper form anymore, that counts against me. How is this fair? To have my health card renewed, I had to request a statement of my account on paper.

I came home thoroughly dispirited. The first time I went to Service Ontario their computer system was down. The second time, yesterday it was the lack of a paper document that stood in my way. Third time lucky?

As if that wasn’t enough, the effort of walking to Service Ontario and standing in line caused a relapse of my cold. Now I feel worse than before.

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