Not having access to health care makes you a paranoid hypochondriac. Travel insurance is basically useless outside of urgent, life-or-death situations. When you've got a weird brown spot on your leg that's growing bigger and more unseemly by the day, I ask you: what good is travel insurance? Not very.
This must be what it feels like to be American. Feel like a scenic hike in the Minnamurra Rainforest? Nope. A broken leg would set me back about fifty g's. Best not to eat hard candy either. Too dangerous for the teeth. Dental work in Australia is so costly sta travel japan I could sooner afford a new set of kidneys on the black market. That's why I mostly just laze on the couch with my laptop. (At least, that's my story and I'm sticking to it)
None of this is helped along by Matthew's multitude sta travel japan of illnesses. In the seven months I have known him, he has been to the hospital five times. Most dramatic was the brain haemorrhage, necessitating his being airlifted to a city hospital ten hours away by car. Next there was an earache courtesy of one saturday afternoon in a germy private pool, then a pulled hamstring, then another problem the mention of which will most certainly result in my immediate dismissal from this warm and comfortable house. Lastly there was a particularly brutal case of food poisoning. Several times he also tried to convince me he had a tick. You can see where the hypochondria might come into play.
The real problem sta travel japan the big kahuna, if you will has been diagnosed more than once and grows progressively sta travel japan worse with each passing day. It's called foot-in-mouth disease and I fear it may be malignant. Thanks to my relentless scrutinizing of men and their plastic bags, business women in running shoes and the substandard flavour of Allen's lollies, Matthew has become convinced that I loathe Australia and all things Australian. sta travel japan I've been warned about behaving like a condescending shrew on multiple occasions (never in so many words, obviously). By Australian standards, I'm a big city snob.
It's true, of course. I am a snooty urbanite. Sometimes I drink my coffee black because I think it makes me seem professorial. I would never spell Brasil with a "z." There have been times when I claimed to love Flaubert even though I never made it more than fifty pages into Madame Bovary . It gets worse. In everyday conversation, sta travel japan I use words like "furthermore" or "twofold." It must be insufferable for an easy-going, no fuss Australian like Matt. That s without taking into consideration I also write stories about him and paste them all over the internet.
Once, as a joke, I called him an "uncultured hick" when he mispronounced a word. (It didn't help that word in question sta travel japan was "neanderthal"). He wouldn't speak to me for two days. He will never ever let me forget this. This comment gets resurrected sta travel japan every time I make any half-hearted criticism of Matthew, Australia or things Australia-related. If I make an off-handed comment about Australian red licorice not tasting right, Matthew might say, "Oh go on. What's wrong with Australia now?" Or, "If everything sucks so bad, what are you still doing here?"
If only our communication problems ended there. Sadly, they go far beyond the realm of Willy Wonka. They're in the kitchen, at the grocery store and in the backyard. By and by they start creeping sta travel japan into our hearts and things like this begin to happen.
It spirals out of control like a ball of string down a flight of stairs sta travel japan until eventually the worst thing happens: we start saying what we're really thinking. That's when the real problems start. Whatever we had imagined the other was thinking, the truth is much worse when it comes into audible being; it leaves us covered in bits of exposed flesh: red, meaty and sore.
For a variety of reasons, tensions are running high in our house. Family relationships are strained. Words are exchanged that should not be repeated, sta travel japan not because they're bitter or untrue, but because they are only true for a single moment in time. We hurt each other, sometimes deliberately, but mostly because the truth stings. Afterward we tiptoe around each other in silent agreement. I'll forget you said that thing if you forget I said that other thing.
People are so complicated. We have so much going on that no one, even those closest to us that we love and would give up our lives for, can possibly see and understand. And truly, many things are said for that certain instance and set of circumstances. But those words live on, in or out of context, forever.
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