Complaint Week // Complaint #1 of 5: DOCTORS & PRE-ILLNESS.

Over four billion written per year.

The general practitioner no longer interrogates a patient, but the patient’s blood-work, instead. Clicks the pen, does the G.P., and scribbles script. On account of your “levels” you must now take a pill for the rest of your life, if you do as G.P. says. Do you have a symptom? Good. If you don’t have a symptom, then why have you gone to the doctor in the first place? Oh, I see, because you need to prevent a disease from getting you, somewhere down the line. Clearly, the first sign of trouble—is having no symptom(s) at all. Chances are, you stepped into the office healthy, but left the office as a person who has a pre-illness; you left the office pre-sickly. Clicks the pen, does the G.P., somewhere else, down the corridor. You are, by now, idling at the reception desk, staring out at a simmering ruck of patients in the waiting area. Hey, to be a patient requires patience, because the doctor won’t call you back for a couple of hours. Some people go back straightaway, though. They wear shiny suits, and uncork their shiny grins, and tug behind them heavy suitcases on wheels. You can subtract “Theory” from “Conspiracy Theory”, by the way, when the Conspiracy holds itself up to the light. The doctor is also, as they say, a pharmacy. His shelving overfloweth with free samples. The drug rep comes out, his suitcase a little lighter. He will make many rounds (house calls!) in the same building until he has delivered all the samples to all the doctors. It has been noted by many reliable researchers that doctors with ties to Big Pharm are responsible for determining the blood-work levels required to verify your pre-illness. It may follow that the free sample carousel must be part of some elaborate (and lucrative) reward system to benefit the entire doctoring field. Click, goes the doctor’s pen. Click, click. What’s next? If you don’t have a pre-illness, then you may be at risk for developing a pre-illness. How’s your pre-illness? Can you take a pre-illness day at work? Do they cover pre-illness in pre-med? No, no, no! I get it, I get it! The medical profession has successfully dealt a blow to illness … by creating pre-illness. Pretty soon, there will be no more illin’ people, anywhere, in the world. Everybody will be pre-illin’.

Complaint #2: Gravitational Pull.
Complaint #3: Washington Metrorail.
Complaint #4: Beer Prices.
Complaint #5: Industrial Decay.