Wednesday, November 25th, 2020

I get to the ear doctor fifteen minutes early. I wait for an hour and a half. In the lobby, half the chairs are marked with signs to keep them vacant for social distancing. Families sit together anyway. Single people sit alone. I have to wait a few minutes for a seat. Some people read. Some people watch videos on their phones. Few of them use earbuds. A young boy sprawls across his parents’ laps. A girl whose family sits across from them runs up and down the hall. Her tiny sneakers are surprisingly loud. She spots an empty chair, apart from the others, and darts over to it. She tries to jump up and sit on the chair. She succeeds after a half dozen tries. She sits upright for a moment, her feet dangling halfway to the floor, then swivels around and hangs off of it upside down. She slides off, her hands hitting the tiles, lowers herself into a clump on the ground, and laughs. An electronic voice finally calls my number. The doctor checks my ears, prescribes an ointment for when they itch, and tells me to go to the nearby hospital for a hearing test. He wants me to go tomorrow, since it’s already been close to two weeks since my initial earaches. I can’t do it. I have to do some emergency video edits before an online presentation in the afternoon. He grudgingly lets me wait until Sunday. Downstairs, a pharmacist looks at my prescription. He rattles off a long string of high-speed Hebrew. I only recognize the words “health plan.” I tell him that I don’t understand. He speaks more slowly. “All you have to understand is that it’s forty shekels.” OK. I try to swipe my debit card on the device on the counter. I get it wrong six different ways before I succeed. On the way home, I think of getting dinner at one of the many eateries nearby. I don’t. None are serving indoors, and it’s starting to rain. I pull my sweatshirt’s hood up and catch a bus home.