There’s this famous Russian talk show host, the Russian Oprah (this is not his name, it’s what I call him to make things clearer). And one of his segments some years ago was dedicated to the recent murder of a famous Russian bandit / oligarch.

(Please understand that I’m using the word “Russian” here in reference solely to citizenship. Aside from the talk show host, nobody in the story is actually Russian.)

So all of the guests on the show were other bandits / oligarchs. They are sitting there, passionately discussing who could have put out a hit on the murdered fellow.

“You gotta understand, dude was smart,” says one bandit. “Nobody could have gotten one over on him. He was so smart.”

“Yeah?” interrupts the richest of the bandits / oligarchs on stage. “If he’s so smart, how come he’s so dead?”

There’s oft-repeated truism that the people in charge don’t mean to create the chaos we are seeing. They are just inept. Silly, dumb, bumbling little fools. Strangely, nobody seems to wonder how come these bumbling little fools are so fabulously rich while the people who snicker at their ineptitude are so fabulously not.

What if the chaos is there by design? Example: ah, those vaccine passports in NYC are never going to work. It’s all such a mess. Nobody will comply, people will buy fakes, you can’t enforce it, I just went to a restaurant and nobody hassled me, ha ha.

But that’s precisely where the mistake lies. You assume that the goal is what was declared and then when you see chaotic execution, you decide that the process was messed up out of incompetence. And maybe it was. But what if it wasn’t?

Remember the rollout of Obamacare? Ha ha, what a mess! Strangely, it’s only a mess when you need something. When they do, things work just fine.

The war in Iraq, the withdrawal from Afghanistan, COVID, defund the police – ha ha, what are they, stupid? Don’t they see it’s not working. But it is working. For them.

Stupid Biden, he’s so demented. He’s the president of the US and owns mansions, yet he’s somehow the fool in all of this. And so on. Stupid Trump, stupid Kamala. Poor inept little fools. In the meantime, we are so smart yet we are struggling to pay bills and figure out how to protect the little we do have from being taken away by these fools.

Sorry for a long post. I’ll shut up now.

Also, the personnel at the cancer center has this exaggeratedly kind and solicitous way of treating patients. It might work with people who are already confirmed as sick. But the patients who are still waiting to get a diagnosis can get really freaked out when everybody goes, “Are you OK? Do you need to lie down? I can find a room for you to lie down. Do you need some water? How are you feeling?” If you know you are there for what is supposed to be a routine visit, this amount of kindness is really scary.

Then you hear a chopper coming in to airlift a patient from the roof and you wonder if you are that patient.

Yes, I’m an actual hypochondriac.

Somebody needs to offer medical personnel at least a short workshop on human psychology.

I’ve had two mammograms and an ultrasound today. Three hours. Sat in a waiting room with women who have one or no breasts. One woman is crying into the phone, “Honey, they found a lump.” Finally, the nurse comes in with my results and says, with a crestfallen look, “I’m SO sorry!”

“Yes?” I say, trying not to start googling 5-year survival rates.

“We have a high volume of patients right now, and the equipment started malfunctioning in one of the rooms. . .”

“Do you have my results?” I croak.

“Oh!” she says. “Yes! It’s benign. You’re fine, you can go.”

Every time I come into one of these things, the doctor says, “Your blood pressure is elevated. Why is that?”

Because I know you, people, will scare me to death and I’m getting ready for it.

The line for the yearly mammogram is like nothing I’ve ever seen. I’ll be here all day. I’m thinking these are the women who missed their yearly exam because of COVID and are now catching up.

I didn’t qualify for monoclonal antibodies because I’m too young and not fat enough. It felt really good to be too young and not fat enough, for a change. But I’m running out of people who haven’t heard the story of me being too young and too thin. And I really like repeating it.

I wonder if Taliban’s rules on sexual intercourse are more or less restrictive than this:

Of course, in a culture that has a sense of humor, this wouldn’t be possible.

People at the CVS must think my sister is the worst hypochondriac neurotic in history. She is fully vaccinated, under 40, in great shape, blooming with health, zero symptoms of anything, yet gets tested every couple of days.

She’s not a neurotic. She’s Canadian. Which is the same thing these days, so please disregard my post.

I swear, I always really loved Canada. Used to think Montreal and Toronto were the best cities in North America. I’m not a hater. I’m a betrayed, wounded lover.