Today, I went back for my monthly walk-in at the allergist, the one I previously called Public Health about.

Here’s where you get to place your bets on the results, throw five bucks in the pool on percentages of medical employees complying with the law. Too late, here’s the answer, without any white space or scrolling, boooooo Annne booooo.

Two out of three, not wearing masks. A hundred percent of patients wearing masks. Someone came in without a mask, said, “Oooh, I forgot my mask!” and hurried back to her car to get it.

Twat waffle checking everyone in ? NO MASK. PLENTY of smirk and turning away from me when I approached to sign in.

I called Public Health again.

Instead of a person, a recording. Trying to remain positive (maybe one complaint is a warning, two will result in a fine? The details on the county public website were fuzzy, with only one city voting in definite fines for violations)

and doggedly resisting the realistic (everyone’s given up! This recording is going directly into the circular file! All available phone operators are currently coughing all over each other, a la Phase 2 of any good zombie apocalypse story!)

I left my message and hung up the phone, feeling impotent, defeated and near tears, wondering why I am such a masochist to keep going to this stupid plague-hole. JUST STOP, ANNE. CHRIST, JUST STOP.

But I can’t? Like I pep-talked myself by saying next month I will have an Actual Scheduled Appointment with the Actual Doctor, and I can give him an earful about his fucking disaster of an office and then I can rage quit, flouncing from his office to… I dunno, find another doctor in the middle of a pandemic, leaving my bottles of expensive pre-paid serum behind? Stop having allergies? Some brilliant commenter suggested I inject myself, and I am bringing this possibility up with the doctor when I meet him.

But the fact that I keep going back, each time sure if I bring enough fire, I can make things right speaks to my mental health right now. I am so desperate for any sense of justice, anywhere. The allergist, a microcosm of my obsessive insistence that if I could just make this one little thing work right, the lunacy of the entire world might be mitigated somehow.

This morning, we went to pick up books for one of my kids at school, all on a timed schedule according to last name. Even though masks and social distancing were mandated, half the kids walking through the parking lot all got into carpool cars, three or four per car, no masks. Even now, when it’s so bad they can’t go to school. I wanted to cry.

But! I had already cried earlier this morning in the grocery store parking lot about something else.

So instead, I bought a hard wax home waxing kit. I do think I have some minor self-harm tendencies I’ve managed to funnel into socially appropriate outlets, so I decided I’m gonna give myself a bikini wax. By myself. At least then, something that pisses me off I can simply rip out by the roots instead of  crying, helpless and with no results.

If you don’t hear from me, I’m probably somehow hot wax sealed to the bottom of my bathtub, which is where I will be taking on this experiment. For the love of god, don’t send help. I’d rather just die unfound than face the humiliation of that rescue.