The 20s

College graduates present an interesting take on priorities. Take my co-worker, for example. He's perfectly nice in every way, conscientious, well-mannered, appropriate, etc. But he's had a cold since midterm of his last semester. He started with us in December and says he's had the same cold from October until now.

Since I'm "older" and "wiser" and needed to say something to be polite and pretend like I'm playing along in this office game, I asked if he had asked any doctors about it; 90 days may be good "same as cash," but for an infection, it seems menacingly lengthy.

He said he didn't have health insurance yet.

I said, "A visit is only $100 at the most. . . there's even a free place but you have to wait a while - it's not horrible and scary, even though the name has 'free' and 'clinic' in it."

He just said he'd wait, that he wasn't the kind of person who went to doctors.

I'm not down with the MDs either, but I will show up in their cold offices at least once a year as part of our "deal" to make sure I'm "healthy" enough to continue to have privileged access to overpriced medicine to prevent pregnancy, and at the end of the year, I even dragged my sorry sick self in for the requested salvation of antibiotics.

I never ever take these things, sinus infections, though chronic at times, be damned!

The point is, I was actually sick for once, lame and achey for days on end, no appetite, nearly an impossibility. Long boring story short, it was "just a virus" that "everyone has" and that I should shut up and go home and do nothing. I scored some free decongestants, with real meth-precursors, though opted out of street sales (right) to save them for a few weeks later when the inevitable health-crash of my life/space partner took place. I was already beyond needed comfort meds when I paid my $30 copay anyway.

I wouldn't blame my young co-worker for echewing the usually futile pursuit of health from the medical profession, except that right before our chat on wellness, he told me he was excited about picking up his new television this weekend.

Yeah, Best Buy or someplace equivalent was having a sale, zero percent financing until 2007 or 2009, whatever, and semi-miserable uninsured he had bought a new high-definition 40-something inch TV for $2,000.