I love simplicity. Oh, sure, my writing may leave some doubt about that. And then there is that whole thing where I went to law school and learned that the answer to every question is “it depends.” So my “simplicity” credentials leave something to be desired. But seriously, I enjoy simplicity. Conversely, I get pretty frustrated when something simple becomes complicated. For example, when a certain famous coffee chain decides to take a simple naming scheme (small, medium, large) and trade it for something a bit less pedestrian. I usually just say small, medium, or large and let the baristas translate it. They love me there. As Shakespeare said, “A rose by any other name still contains 16 ounces with whipped cream on top.” Or something like that. So I like things simple. Which is unfortunate because a while ago I had to go to the doctor.

It had been a long summer of medical procedures. After finding out that I was the lucky 1 in 25,000 to have a particular heart condition, I also found out that I was in the lucky 7 in 100 to need multiple procedures to fix that heart condition. I have never bought a lottery ticket in my life, but I was starting to wonder if I should. But all of that was (hopefully) in the past. All I had to do now was convince someone to give me an electrocardiogram (or EKG since, apparently, kardiologists can’t spell) so I could send the results to my doctor and he could tell me that I was fine. Or not, in which case I should buy a lottery ticket.

Since I had moved during the whole medical process, I was now several hours from the guy who kept on wanting to stick wires into my heart. It was either that or get a restraining order. But I also did not have a regular doctor in my new hometown. This drove me to look for urgent care facilities. I needed one with an EKG machine that was open on Saturday and that took my insurance. That narrowed it down neatly to a single facility.

In case you have never experienced the joys of an EKG, let me explain. Basically, they stick a bunch of fancy medical stickers to your body and hook wires to these stickers. This takes about two minutes. Then, they wait 30 seconds while the wires watch your heart do its thing. Then they unhook the wires, and you spend the rest of the day finding stickers in odd places like your right earlobe. Seriously, all of this is for about 30 seconds of information. Set up easily takes longer than the critical part where they can see what your heart is doing. Good grief, watching the nurse try to clean up blood from the step to the examining table takes longer (I am not kidding). But after all of this plus multiple attempts to explain that all I needed was an EKG to send to someone more qualified (no, I did not phrase it like that when I was talking to them) plus a couple of presidential administrations in the waiting room, they finally had my results which said: I was having a heart attack.

Again, not kidding. Somehow, the EKG was showing at least certain signs that I should be doubled over on the floor. The doctor showed me the graph, told me it looked like a textbook heart attack, and asked me if I was experiencing any chest pain. Maybe the stress of law school has made me calloused, but I hope that I would notice if I was suddenly experiencing massive “chest pain.” Nevertheless, the doctor wanted to send me to the emergency room across the street just in case. So a nurse and I walked (yes, walked) over, carefully dodging traffic, and got me checked in. On the intake form where it asked for symptoms, I wrote, “I have been told I am showing signs of a heart attack.” Let me tell you, if you want prompt service at an emergency room, drop the words “heart attack.” They rushed me back and took my blood pressure which I can only assume was significantly higher than before they told me that my EKG looked like a HEART ATTACK (sorry, no need to shout; I hope your ear wasn’t too close to the letters). Then they put some more medical stickers on me and took another EKG. This one apparently looked “prettier.” After a brief conversation with a doctor, they shuffled me out of there. I was in the emergency room less time than I had been in the waiting room at the urgent care.

Smiling at the insanity of it all, I walked back across the street to pay the $20 copay, thanked the doctor for his caution, and drove home. It should have been simple. It could have taken about five minutes. It didn’t.

I love simplicity. But even when it gets more complex, it can still work out. I walked out of there with two EKGs. I thought that, when I sent them to my doctor, I should probably attach an explanation. One of them might have given him a heart attack.