Wednesday 19 November 2008

Change I'm Not Entirely Sure I Believe In

You know you're close to your friends when you meet just before lunch to pick up free chlamydia testing kits (um, you can never be too careful, but they also had free cookies), you take turns in your bathroom chatting and getting your bodily fluids together, and you drop off your samples and get your complimentary socialized donuts, sponsored by the NHS and Krispy Kreme. (I'm not really sure why they were handing out cookies and donuts. It's not like I gave a pint of blood; they only asked for like 15 milligrams of pee, and that can't possibly contain that much blood sugar. I'm not complaining, though, because the donut was awesome.)

The strangest part is that it didn't occur to me at the time that it was at all weird to do this with someone as a fun pre-lunch activity, and I only realized this later in the day. And even then, I began to feel sorry for people who don't have that in their life. (By "that," I mean platonic intimacy, not the sexually transmitted infection.) I'm guessing this is what my grandma felt like when she realized that over half the country had somehow voted for Obama, who she suspected of being secretly Muslim. Surprise, you are not a representative sample.

Speaking of Obama, remember when the campaign emailed to say that you could get a text message to be the first to know when he'd picked a vice president? Apparently, the NHS will send you a text message to let you know whether or not you have chlamydia. I'm not entirely sure I like where this trend is going.

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