Dark Taxi Ride

I had to go way up on the hill to have an appointment with the Rhumatologist. It was scheduled for 6, well into the Spanish winter evening. My downstairs neighbor Alfredo came along as a translator. When it comes to money and health I need the information to be pretty concrete.

It was a weird dark ride. It was raining and the taxi driver was playing sitar music on the stereo and he had a plastic Jesus and a plastic Buddha stuck to the dash board. Alfredo kept visiting these extremely dark topics, topics that seemingly affect both of us. But it just wasn't the right time. We wound up through the Eixample and into Sarria. For much of the trip it was bumper to bumper traffic. Lots of time to hear just about how bad things could be. I couldn't get my leg comfortable. I appreciated the company and the help but I eventually asked him to please change the subject.

Finally we arrived at the office. We waited a for a while and I kept pretending to read Hola, sort of a Spanish "People" magazine but Alfredo kept getting back to bleakness. Eventually the Rhumatologist saw us. He just kept banging away in Spanish. OK, OK I know it's my fault I live in Spain, but he he wouldn't slow down and he wouldn't back up. It was 90% techno jargon that seemed to have a lot to do with my future.

On the way back Alfredo continued with his devil's advocacy. I occasionally closed my eyes and just wished I was in another place. A place where people spoke English, were nicely taciturn and didn't make everything an emotional upheaval out of cultural necessity. A place where my leg didn't hurt. I wanted a pine log on the fire, a dog on my lap and a slightly warm beer. OK put Zoe at my feet drawing pictures of raccoons and you have version of heaven.