The one in which I fight off a bunch of old people

Yesterday I did something I hadn't done since last Thursday.

I got dressed. Bust out the marching band.

Stop laughing. You try putting a pair of socks on without being able to bend over or lift up your knees. Ha. Bet you're not laughing anymore!

But I figured that three-day old pajamas would not do for an outing to the clinic, so I managed to dress myself and make my way outside. Only to discover that it had snowed and I had chosen the slipperiest day of the year to walk outside with a bum back. Good call on that one Samantha. But I shuffled my way to the bus and slowly made my way to the walk-in clinic. I had to wait for about an hour - and man, if I wasn't sick before, I should be now, what with all that coughing and hacking going on in there. I swear one guy almost lost his lung in a potted plant.

Anyways, back to the story.

The doctor saw me and agreed I had a very limited range of motion (big surprise there Doc). She sent me upstairs to get an x-ray "just in case". And then I spent the next two and a half hours in a waiting room filled with little old people. "Aww, cute" I bet you're thinking. Ha! Little old French people may look cute but they are the evilest (is that a word??) people on this planet. They make look frail, but they will roll over your foot, cut in front of you in line and/or jab you with their cane if it means they can get ahead of you in line.

Apparently that day though, the old person quota was exceptionally high - they'd all been out and about shuffling around in the snow like I had, except a lot of them had fallen and were in to get scanned for broken bones. It was like a geriatric bull ring in there, watching them all try to cut in front of the other one. "My case is more urgent" "No, my case is!" Thank God I had my mp3 player with or I would've gone insane listening to all of them screech. I swear, some of those old women have voices only dogs can hear. And don't even get me started on their sense of entitlement.

Rupert, go ask them what's taking so long.
Gertrude, I just asked them that five minutes ago.
Well, go ask again. This is getting ridiculous.
I'm not asking again. You ask!
*jabs the poor man in the ribs with her umbrella*
Fine, I'll go ask.

Now, translate that into French and multiply it by 50 and play it on repeat and you've got the hell I was in.

But I finally got my x-ray, and of course nothing was broken. So I had to go back downstairs and wait again for another hour to see the doc again. She gave me pain pills and a muscle relaxers, plus a prescription for several sessions with an osteopath. By that time, my entire day had been spent at the clinic (good thing I don't have a 9-5 job, right?), and I had just enough time to go pick up my meds and head over to the osteopath.

This is getting kind of long, so more about that adventure tomorrow...