Oddly enough, for an ordinary resident of Rostov-on-Don, there are fewer and fewer opportunities for independent visiting and communication with water bodies, for example, with the Don River.
It is not even a matter of a constantly blocking there and here approaches to water objects by a various kinds of fences.
There are places where it is in principle impossible to block approaches to the shore, or it is extremely difficult to do so.
But, however, in such places you can find cut bushes and small trees that remain partially on the shore, and partially in the water - so it is extremely difficult to approach the water.
Why was this detail remembered?
Because from one of these cut bushes an acari (a tick) jumped on me. If the bushes grow in a normal way, then the person who wants to enjoy communicating with nature, with the river, chooses a place free of thickets, where you can approach the water without touching the branches. If the cut branches are located (are spread out) along the coast, then, one way or another, a nature lover touches them.
After communicating with nature, already in the evening, while taking a shower, I found a tick sticking to my skin.
Immediately, the memory helpfully reproduced caring admonishments in the media about the danger of ticks and about measures to counter the threat of ticks.
A human must take care of his health! Having found a tick, it should be carefully packed in a bottle and taken to a medical institution for analysis. If it will be found an infection in the tick, then appropriate treatment will be carried out for a human.
Naturally, all this was said not by some random person with the face of an alcohol lover, but by some more or less official persons directly or indirectly related to medicine.
The such a care convinces!
Despite the fact that it was already evening, the tick was packed in a bottle and prepared for transfer to a medical facility.
But where to transfer it ?!
For some reason, there was in the memory a mention of the medical emergency room, which, as you know, works around the clock.
And to where else can a tick be attributed in the evening?
So I headed to the medical emergency room, although this was not at all part of my plans, and it was extremely inconvenient from the point of view of mutual territorial location.
There were practically no queues at the medical emergency room. Excellent! The staff were extremely helpful. Quickly examined me, then - they glanced at the tick. Pleasant efficiency!
The employees filled the documents (it seems, it was a questionnaire and a direction).
A bottle (with the tick in it) was wrapped in the document (in the direction). And they named the address of the laboratory where the tick analysis is carried out.
The laboratory was (for me) even more uncomfortable located than the emergency room.
Maybe in the media there was a mention of the need to carry the tick to the laboratory (and not to the emergency room?), But I did not pay attention to this? I still can't say anything clear about this ...
At the same time, I wrote the time of work of the laboratory. In the evenings, she did not work. That's for sure. The overall impression was this: it's not so easy to hand over the tick for analysis - and the hours of operation made an impression not comfortable, and some kind of additional conditions seemed to be voiced (were there? or weren't? which ones? -Time passed away, and it's difficult to restore the details; a general impression left).
The general impression was this - it would necessary to tinker with the plan of transferring the tick to the laboratory.
Somehow this unpleasantly violated the general impression of the concern, - the care, expressed in the stories about the danger of ticks.
But the time was evening. I said goodbye to the kind and qualified staff of the medical emergency room and headed back.
I honestly believed in the care and honestly tried to answer it in the most natural way for a "simple" person.
But, in a strange way, it turned out something like a chess game.
I did not manage to win the initial phase (a chess opening) in this game (in fact, I did not give consent to my participation in a game). I was offered to continue the game...
For some reason there was no certainty that, having spent time for a visiting the laboratory, I would be able to hand over a tick into it. Someday, of course, I can ...
What I did to the bubble with a tick, I don't remember.
I allowed the development of events to go according the natural course. You can listen to the words uttered in an ironic and affectionate voice, about the "Russian avos'" ... And the care, concern is pleasant ... when you hear about it or when you read about it ...
It is especially pleasant to feel a concern, a care from a partner in a chess game.
More than a year, probably, has passed since those events. It's time to describe them in a story.
April 6, 2020 22:55
Translation from Russian into English: April 7, 2020 15:05.
Владимир Владимирович Залесский 'Приятная забота. Рассказ'.