Monday, 4 February 2013

Being a Bottom Shelf Magazine Man.

The dreaded Hospital Visit: (see previous post.)

The clinic was running fifty minutes late, revelation of which fact brought mixed feelings. On the one hand I hate to be kept waiting. On the other, it indicated that the consultant and his underlings were taking the time to do a proper job, which meets with my approval. I decided to take the half full position.

As to the consultancy itself, it went differently than expected. It seems my little intruder has hardly grown, if at all, during the last three years, but it has changed its nature. This led the consultant to suspect that it isn’t what they thought it was, but probably something similar. Or maybe not. So now they want me to go for another ultrasound scan, and maybe another biopsy, and we’ll take it from there. There was no frowning or shaking of heads; the body language of all concerned suggested… well… a lack of concern. So now I wait for another letter.

What I found really interesting was this:

Rather than sit in a chair for fifty minutes, I decided to go for a wander. I found one of those franchise places selling magazines, soft drinks, sweets and so on. One whole wall was taken up by five shelves of magazines, the top four of which were crammed with ‘lifestyle’ publication after ‘lifestyle’ publication. The covers featured things like celebrities doing attitude, men with unnaturally well muscled torsos, provocative and sensationalist headlines, some scrawny young singer with extra attitude pulling her dress down to reveal her little black nipple covers, etc, etc.

The bottom shelf contained the serious magazines, and every one of them – without exception, I swear – was upside down. I remember a time when the top shelf was the one to avoid. Seems the world has turned.

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