So today was my monthly $2400 fix of genetically engineered mouse liver proteins, meant to put the brakes on my MS and it's slow but inexorable consumption of my brain. Far too valuable a commodity for one to inject oneself (and there's always that pesky liability issue, since a couple/three people died in phase 3), all are required by the drug company to come into a special "certified" infusion center to mainline them sweet, sweet mouse liver proteins.
Which of course means two hours in the chair - one for the pump in, and one more I guess to insure we don't transform into some hideous mouse/human chimera and go on a multi-state rampage of senseless destruction and mayhem and cheese eating and frightening housewives from the 1950s (this might have possibly played a part in the phase 3 issues, now that I think about it).
The fickle hand of MS doesn't play favorites, so when plugged into your pump you meet the interesting cross section of society that also man the chairs, assuming you consider the subgroups of
1)those poor enough to be on SSI and medicare; and
2)those well off enough to afford insurance that actually is willing to pony up a significant portion of $2400 a month in perpetuity;
an interesting cross section of society.
Most of my political conversations go on online - echo chamber? Never! - so getting out and about with others who are not drinking from the news firehose can be an interesting, eye opening and, yes, depressing endeavor.
Which brings us to today.
Chair 1: Ya know, I thought since seems like Obama's gonna be the next president, I oughta hear what he thinks, so I caught some a his speech he had down in Florida. But you know what? He may sound real good, and it makes sense when he says it but afterward you just say "What did he actually say?" I didn't hear nothing about what he's gonna do, I know at least with Hillary she would talk about stuff in detail.
Chair 2 (me): That's a common thing I've heard too, but the answer given is that with the news only showing soundbites and stuff it doesn't make sense to go into policy details and if people want to know details they can just go to the website and...
Chair 3 At least with McCain you know what he thinks - Bush and McCain are alike like that, don't just talk from a script like Obama does - whenever he gets a question that can't be answered with prewritten stuff, he gets that deer in the headlights look.
Chair 1: I know! But you can tell it's already been decided, McCain would make a great president but the media has already decided on Obama - but I'll tell you this... they better pick a good vice president, cause I guarantee that they'll be president in 2 and a half years.
(raises eyebrows and nods conspiratorially) Ya know?
Chair 3 You better believe it.
Chair 2 (me): Well, they certainly increased security early in the primary, but I would think that...
Chair 3 And you know what else? Since he got in the senate, he hasn't voted on one thing! Oh, well, he'll SAY he voted, but if you go and check on the website you'll see he always voted "present"!
Chair 2 (me): Uhhh, no, I don't think...
Chair 1: And you know he's got a secret agenda - it's all pretty suspicious. Where's he getting all his money? And who are all these people who can go to rallies and stuff in the middle of the day? And what about <long confusing rant about Rev Wright and Al Sharpton and Lewis Farrakhan that was kinda hard to follow> ?
Chair 2 (me): ....
Chair 3 I hadn't heard about that, but I do know that the Democrat Party has gone off the deep end - that Howard Dean should be shot where he stands. Democrats have been totally taken over by activists and far left liberals, and all the moderates like Hillary and Joe Lieberman have been pushed out. I mean, sure, the Republicans are bad, but the Democrats are worse!
I then shifted the conversation to more pleasant things we could all agree on, like all the different ways it sucks to have MS. I recited the MS truism, that nobody really "gets" MS unless they get MS, and we all agreed that most people just don't try to understand other people's perspectives.