I am walking in to the hospital.  Of course, these days, often, they almost seem like hotels.  The wide open spaces, the reception desk to ‘check in’.  If it wasn’t for all the sick and needy people, the nurses and doctors, you could, often, be entering a four-star hotel.

But, I know where I’m going.  I’m going to visit a friend.  So I can skip reception and continue on to my destination.  Then, just as I’m passing reception a doctor shouts to me ‘Excuse me?’  Is he talking to me?  I look round slightly but not enough to catch his eye.  ‘Excuse me?’ he repeats in a tone that does carry the authority of his position.

I have no choice but to acknowledge him.  I feel like a deer trapped in headlights.  I want to run but I my limbs won’t move.  Except to turn and face him.

‘Yes’, I say.’  Can he actually hear the tremor in my voice?’  Does he know who I am, what I’m doing here?’

‘Do you know where to go?’ he asks, politely.  I’s only a question.  I shouldn’t feel like this.  My heart racing, adrenaline hurrying through my whole body.

‘Yes, I’m visiting my friend’.  I’ve done nothing wrong.  Why is he even checking?’

‘Oh, I thought you were a patient,’ he continues.  Now, why would he do that?  I don’t look like a patient.  ‘Um, look, you don’t look so well.’  Are you sure you’re OK?’  He has that nice, bedside tone but I know that, underneath, he just wants to exercise his power, that he wants to lock me away.

‘No, I’m fine, thanks.’

‘Well, it will only take a moment for me to check you out,’ he says, with that measured tone.

‘No, really, I’m fine.’

‘Look, I’m sorry but, actually, you’re not.  You need some tests to make sure.’

The same thing is true, for me, with prisons (they’ll just keep me there even though I am innocent), although I’ve never been to one.  I think I could only visit a prison if V was inside – and even then it would be so difficult.

And police.  Seeing them makes me feel guilty.  If they look at me I’m sure they will stop me and then arrest me and then I’d be in prison.

And, even more strangely, garages.  My car is poorly.  It’s been poorly for a while.  Normally I would take it into a garage and have it fixed straight away.  However, things have been a bit tight for a while and I have this fear that, if I go into a garage, they will take on look at the car and, suddenly, I’ll be paying €1000 or more for things that I didn’t even realise were wrong in the first place.  I don’t have €1000 to spend (actually, until our lodger gets here later today, I have €10).

But my car is poorly.  I am driving it so carefully now, praying that it will hold on a little longer.  It really needs a service, a new exhaust, probably some replacement tyres, etc., etc.  I’m driving like an old man,  Not speeding, not accelerating more than I have to, braking well in advance, etc.

I praise it out loud when it gets me to work or gets me home.

But yesterday morning was different. On the way to work, through the pouring rain, I noticed when I was stopped in a queue, steam rising from the bonnet.  Now, heavy rain and a warm engine does make steam rise from the bonnet sometimes.  Wispy steam.  In this case it was quite a lot of steam – but it was raining very heavily so I didn’t think too much about it.

Further on, I noticed the temperature gauge moving beyond the central mark – towards hot (which is obviously not a good sign).  But it kept moving there and I remembered the steam.  So I pulled over and, as I did so, the red warning light above the water temperature gauge started flashing.  Hmm.  Not good.  I stopped the engine and looked under the bonnet.  I don’t know why I do this.  If there was anything, I probably wouldn’t be able to tell, let alone do anything about it, but it’s what you do, isn’t it?

I noticed some water on the left hand side – but then it was still pouring with rain.  I closed the bonnet, none the wiser for getting wet and now having dirty hands.  But, in general, I am an optimist, so I thought that, if I let it cool down and manage to get the few kilometres left to work, I could then top up the radiator.

I got to work – although the flashing light became like a siren to me.  It seemed as though it flashed with more urgency the more I drove.  And the temperature kept rising.  I just made it through the gates before it hit the red portion of the gauge.

No steam anymore, though, which was good, wasn’t it?

I go into work, intending to fill up the radiator later, in an hour or two.

But then I got to thinking.  OK, if it was a bit short of water then the red flashing light and the increase in temperature would be less pronounced.  And the more I thought about it, the more I knew that it was something else.  I couldn’t ignore it.  I just hoped it was a split hose or something.

One of my colleagues took me to a garage.  I had a terrible day, yesterday.  All day I was just thinking that I would never get the car back.  They would find the exhaust, the tyres and the 101 other things.

So the cost of the replacement hose (I was quite pleased that my diagnosis was right) was only €100.  Not so bad.  However, when I went to pick up the car he showed me another problem.  The engine was rocking – in a way that it is not meant to.  The reason?  One of the supports had broken.  I showed surprise.

Actually, this had happened last year and I did think that it was an engine support that ‘fell off’ one day.  But, as the engine hadn’t actually fallen out, I had, kind of, forgotten it.  For a few weeks I thought, every time I drove it, that, just like the cartoons, I would be driving and, suddenly, the engine would fall to the floor.  But it didn’t and other things (such as the exhaust) became more pressing.

So now he’s going to quote for the support.  We’ll see how much it costs.

But it just goes to prove my theory on hospitals, prisons, police and garages.  Once they get you in, they find a whole host of other things as a reason to keep you there.

To be honest, I was a little relieved that was all they found.  But then, if it returns, maybe they will find more……