With apologies to Homer:
Calypso, the god of sleep (literary license invoked), had me in her sway. "All’s Well That Ends Well" kept me up past midnight by the time I got back to the hotel and did my ablutions. I had an appointment at a travel clinic to get anti-malarial drugs. The appointment was for 11:00 am. My watch said it was 9:25. And I didn’t want to get up. But Athena whispered in my ear, reminding me that I really needed those drugs.
I roused myself to the shower and quickly dressed. Down the hallway I found a plug and powered up my laptop. I hadn’t written down the name of the clinic when I made the appointment Friday. Poseidon had cursed me with procrastination as a perpetual blight on my life and this week was no different.
“How many travel clinics can there be on 69th Street in Manhattan?” All I needed to do was research Google and get an address. There was still an hour till my appointment and it would only take 30 minutes to get to that neighborhood.
I found one: 140 West 69th. It didn’t exactly sound familiar but it was the only one I found so I headed off. At 10:35 I presented myself at the desk; at 10:37 I slumped out to the street, aware that I was in the wrong place. Now what to do. So I headed off to the nearest Starbucks and hopped on their WiFi. I searched again. Nothing. The clock ticked away; it was 10:45. There was a place listed on 68th Street. Perhaps I’d misremembered the street.
But I couldn’t find that address. It was now 10:56. In front of me was an “Urgent Care Center”. That couldn’t be it.
But Athena again whispered: “Try it.”
“There’s no chance this is the place, “ I told her. But she insisted so I dragged myself to their reception desk. It wasn’t the right place, but, miraculously, they did a Google search and found a place on 69th—East 69th, across Central Park. It was 11:00. I gave up and tried rationalizing the result: maybe I could get the drugs in Dakar. Maybe I could skip it altogether—I seldom get sick. “What are the chances I’d get malaria? {Or Yellow Fever, which was another issue.}
Partially out of guilt (I thought I should pay the doctor his fee since I was the one to screw up); partially out of false hope (Maybe they’ll forgive me if I offer to pay and fit me in somehow.) I decided to hoof it across the park.
Midway through the park I heard Beethoven’s Fifth playing. “Could that be an actual orchestra here on a Monday afternoon?” I asked myself. It must be a recording. But it was an orchestra playing in a band shell. The music was hypnotic. The Park was beautiful. The skies were sunny. There was a gentle breeze blowing. The band shell area was not crowded. I could easily find a place to relax and soak in the music. I began to rationalize, again. “It must be some kind of message telling me to forget the doctor. It would be so pleasurable to sit here and listen.” Somewhere the Sirens laughed.
But Athena chided me. “You owe it to that doctor to at least apologize!”
“But it’s already 11:18. Why should I bother?”
Athena was having none of it; I kept walking. Soon I came to Fifth Avenue on the east side of the park. Three more blocks brought me to the office I’d been referred to. I stepped inside and asked the receptionist if I had an 11:00 appointment. She could find none. My shoulders slumped. But the receptionist (she must have been Phaeacian) persisted. She called the clinic upstairs. They didn’t have me listed but they’d see my anyway.
I hiked up four floors and found the place—actually I didn’t find the place but the doctor found me wandering in the hallway and invited me into her clinic. It was empty. She smiled and gave me a form to fill out. For the next half hour she patiently led me through the process of choosing the best medication, and she gave me my Yellow Fever shot, and she gave me detailed maps of Senegal and South Africa and Namibia and Botswana, explaining how to shield myself from the various diseases. I had her all to myself. Nothing was rushed. I left a happy man.
Expenses:
Clinic $245.00
Anti-malarial drugs $65.00
Anti-malarial drugs $$37.67
lunch $19.00
hotel $60.00
$426.67 total
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