Just your average day in Dundee

As I've mentioned before, Scots are pretty tough people. This is particularly true of the kids, which is great because we can play games with them which at home would spell a certain lawsuit. Particularly, one of my favorites is played by holding hands in a circle around a chair and then eliminating people by flinging them on to it. Electric chair has had its share of injuries, but who can resist such fun??

Well, as you might have guessed, it was my turn to bear the obligatory injury. Though it was a relatively minor one-- a toe no longer pointing north... more like NW-- it was deemed hospital worthy.
Since there's no real point in x-raying a toe, the doctor (who was really cute) decided to just give me a good dose of gas and correct it by hand. I've had gas on multiple other occasions, but let me tell ya, that was some pretty special stuff. I suppose it was just more highly concentrated, because although I'm usually slow to react to such druggery, I was giggling and ready to go in about 5 puffs. In the 20 or 30 seconds that it took him, I was totally gone and heard a most beautiful symphony of hospital sounds. Then, I let the mask drop away, and was fully coherent again after another 4 or 5 breaths. Remarkable! Brick loves lamp, I love gas. There was also a drunk and flirtatious stab-wound patient across the curtain, as if that experience needed to be any more surreal.

Anyway, that being my first time with any kind of doctor here, I was expecting a hassle with registration, complication about payment, etc, etc. Happily, even for aliens, living under the NHS means that you don't pay for stuff like that. At all. Though the workers assured me I was free to go free of charge, I felt very much like I was getting away with shoplifting as I hobbled to the car.
I have more thoughts on the NHS, but that's a much longer discussion than a blog entry would do justice to. Hmm, that reminds me... I won't be under my parents' insurance when I get home. Yikes.