Every time I get the urge to complain about some aspect of life at Harvard, I make myself pause and think, "There are people in the world who would give their left arm to be in your shoes." After about a minute, though, that feeling usually passes, and I continue on to bitch.

My gripe today is with--surprise, surprise--University Health Services. Now, let me preface these remarks by saying that my experience with UHS has generally been good. I like my primary care physician a lot, and I usually receive decent treatment from other aspects of the organization. But last week, suffering from a cold so bad I could barely think straight, I walked through the doors of the after-hours urgent-care unit and into a bureaucratic nightmare funnier and more disturbing than any Saturday Night Live sketch I have seen in the past year.

Entering through the basement door, I encountered a security guard who asked me to sign in and then told me that I should take the elevator to the fifth floor, go to the right and put my name down to be seen.

Stepping off the elevator on the fifth floor, a woman getting on asked me if I needed to sign in.

"Huh?"

"I said, do you need to sign in?"

"Uh, I already did, downstairs."

"No, I mean, do you need to be seen?"

She then told me to go to the desk on the left. I told her I had been instructed to go right, but she insisted, so I stumbled over to the desk on the left, which conveniently had no one behind it.

"Hello?" I croaked. A few moments later, a woman walked out and asked if she could help me.

"I've had a really bad cold for a week and I'd like to be seen--"

"Well, you're at the wrong desk. You need to go to the right."

Stumbling back to the right, I entered a waiting room with yet another empty desk, devoid in fact of all human life except for two other hapless patients sitting against the wall. I asked them if they knew what was up, and it turned out that they were also waiting to sign up to be seen, that there was a nurse who poked her head in every so often, and that I should just wait.

Twenty minutes later, a nurse did indeed stick her head out--and a millisecond later turned around to leave again. Lumbering to my feet, I ran after her and caught her in mid-stride. Her desire to pull away was almost palpable.

"Um, I'd like to be seen, please."