Melissa Kite Melissa Kite

Real life | 30 May 2019

After 30-odd years of NI contributions, it treats my request for basic information as a gross impertinence

issue 01 June 2019

The receptionist fixed me with a withering stare. I had just filled out a repeat prescription form and politely inquired of the girl behind the desk how I would know when it was ready.

She harrumphed and asked where I usually picked my prescriptions up from. I told her the pharmacy on site, you know, the one next door to the surgery, the one just there, in the car park of this building. The one you could see out the window. That one.

She stared at me as though I were explaining that I collected my prescriptions from the international space station.

‘I’ll look it up,’ she said, as though my theory fell so far short of logic it was not worth even considering. ‘Date of birth?’ I don’t know why they don’t just give us a serial number. They could stamp it on our foreheads so they don’t even have to ask.

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