A Long Day's Journey to the Doctor's

I looked at my finger. I’m not a doctor but I could tell that it wasn’t meant to be that red and swollen. Not being a doctor also means that my knowledge of anatomy is limited but I was sure that a finger should be able to bend at the joints. Otherwise the human race would have evolved into a race of finger-pointers rather than the creator of clay pots, serge worsted material and spaceships. With a heavy heart I realised I would have to pay a visit to the ambulatorio or doctors’ surgery.

My heart was not heavy because the quality of public health care in Spain is poor. Far from it. Without an appointment I was seen by the nurse who then contacted the emergency doctor. Within half an hour I had my diagnosis of an infected finger and a prescription for antibiotics. However, I do want to add that being Spanish neither the nurse nor the doctor could hide their disgust at the state of my finger, the nurse actually taking a step backwards and saying words to the effect of:
-That’s not right is it?
No, the reason my heart was heavy was that I knew I would have to cope with the Spanish inability to cope with a queue.

I’m not going to claim that I’ve made a startling discovery here. The difficult relationship that Spaniards have with queues of any description is well-known. For some reason little old women (being Spain there is a definite shortage of tall old women) are the worst offenders. If violence doesn’t work (being small they are closer to your vital organs and a blow to your kidneys with a walking stick can leave you paralysed long enough for them to skip in front of you) they resort to persuasion.
-¿Te molestará si paso adelante? They’ll say. Solo tengo tres cosas (Do you mind if I go in front of you? I’ve only got three things).
Other Spanish women are never taken in by this and, without looking at the little old woman, will reply:
-Pero señora, yo también (But madam, so have I).

I would claim, however, that I have identified a major difference between Spanish and British culture. The British see a problem and write strong letters of complaint to the newspapers. The Spanish look at a problem and turn to the person next to them and talk about it. So, instead of organising a tannoy system that announces your name and the doctor you are to see; putting outside the doctor’s room a screen that shows your number and place in the queue; even sticking a handwritten list of all the patients due to see that doctor that day, the Spanish rely on three words without which Spain would grind inexorably to a halt:
-¿Eres el ultimo? (Are you the last?).

If you stand still long enough in Spain someone will ask you this. It’s as if Spaniards rather than see queues in the way that the British do, sense them with a gland that we don’t have. So that, if you are, say, standing near but not actually in a shop then to a Spaniard you may be waiting to be served. To avoid the possibility of jumping this queue, which of course does not exist in the sense that we would think of it (certain scientists are beginning to argue that these queues do exist but in an alternative and theoretical universe), they will ask:
-¿Eres el ultimo?

The person to whom this is asked may not be the last person and, as in the ambulatorio when I returned to have the finger lanced, may then indicate a very elderly woman who is quite clearly at the opposite end of the waiting room and, in fact, is sitting at the door of a different doctor. However, as any Spaniard, will assure you, she is, in fact, waiting in the queue. Your queue. Up to now the waiting room has been fairly quiet. However, with this simple question the flood gates open. People compare how long they have waited. People who are in the wrong queue are guided to the right one, rather unnecessary in my opinion since it appears that if you stand anywhere in Spain you are, in a very real sense, already in your queue. Surprise is expressed that surprise is being expressed that one has to wait for such a long time. People in white lab coats stick handwritten notes on doors announcing the closure of a doctor’s room. People, to check if this is the case, knock and then enter the examining room, presumably to the surprise of the doctor and patient still in there. Voices are raised. Chaos threatens and anarchy is only avoided when the doctor comes out with a list of all the patients (where the hell did he get it from?) and gets everyone in order:
-¿Señora Garcia Lopez?
-Aquí.
-Eres la proxima. ¿Señora Rodriguez Zapatero?
-Aqui.
-Eres la proxima. Señor ...
Like schoolchildren caught being naughty by the teacher everyone is suddenly very quiet and you half expect someone to say:
-It wisnae me. Big boys did it an ran away.
God knows how the Germans cope with all of this.

As British people it is very easy to be self-righteous about this. I remember hearing of a friend, a very tall and very statuesque British woman, while waiting in a queue for a bus, being lifted, gently but lifted nonetheless, by a very small Spanish gentleman and put down to one side so that he could get on the bus before her. This is just the sort of behaviour that a century ago would have seen the prompt despatch of a fleet of British naval gunboats and the burning of various small villages by an expeditionary force led by a man with a large moustache. But the more time you spend here the greater the danger of “going native”, which is why British expeditionary forces were always led by men with big moustaches, this being the only guarantee that the small villages would indeed be burnt down. I remember going to the pictures with my girlfriend. We bought our tickets and went to wait outside the cinema. Very quickly I saw that, without meaning to, we had, in fact, skipped the queue and would get into the cinema before people who had been waiting longer than us. I pointed this out to girlfriend who reassured me that we were in the queue, the Spanish queue. I looked around at the people waiting with us, chatty, smiling, relaxed. I could see no one who looked as if they were mentally composing a strong letter of complaint to a newspaper. I could be British and go to the end of the non-existent queue or go in the cinema, sit down and watch the movie like everyone else. To be honest, it wasn’t much of a decision to make. After all, would you want to be el ultimo?