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.

www.connymanero.weebly.com

The most expensive item

Do you know what the most expensive item is these days? Forget designer clothing, diamond jewelry or even a sports car, people can afford those. I see them every day, men and women dressed in Gucci or Armani, wearing Guess shoes and handbags, sporting jewelry that spews a rainbow fountain of colors. Yet only a select few can afford ... a box of tissues.

In this time of year, when half of the population has a cold or at least needs to blow their nose from time to time, you would think that the wet nosers would stock up on tissues for the office and a packet of paper handkerchiefs for when on the go, but that is not the case.

When plagued with a snotty nose they use the top or bottom part of their sleeve or worse, nothing. They pull up their nose again and again and again, obviously hoping that whatever wants to come out will go away.

It makes me want to grab their Guess bag and hit them over the head with it, or strangle them with their Gucci tie. I mean really, just how much does a box of Kleenex cost these days? I’ll tell you how much, $3.25 for the kind that has lotion in them; $2:00 for the regular kind and 99 cents for something store brand. Is that so much? Can’t the regular and designer clad folks afford another 99 cents to keep their nose clean?