An American in Provence

I went to the doctor's last Friday (which is NOT an easy thing to do, now that he is open for a whopping total of what, 6 hours a week? not including Saturdays, and closing before I get home from work)
I wanted to ask him about my persistent cough, which I have had since the end of October. It seems to happen to me every winter.
Alain kept suggesting that maybe it was the "coqueluche" which I had no idea what it was until I translated it online "Whooping cough". Oh man, hope it's not that.
Anyway, I went to the doctor, and when he called me in to his office, I saw that he had a young (male) intern with him, learning the ropes of exciting general practice.
How fun- Doc, my foot hurts. Doc, I think I have the flu. Doc, I'm a hypochondriac. All day long.

Anyway, in the US, whenever I have gone to see a doctor and they have an intern with them, the doctor has always offered me the possibility of saying that I didn't want the intern there during my examination. It never bothered me (hey, I guess they have to practice on poor schlups some way or another, right?) but it is at least nice to be offered the option, if you have something really embarrassing that you only want to disclose to your long-standing doctor.

Anyway, I told the doctor and mini-doctor about my cough, and he looked in his records and sure enough, I had come in for the exact same thing end of Jan. 2008 .
I went and sat on the examining table, and he started with my ears. He inserted the ear-thingy and said "Do you hear me okay?" Yeah, sure I hear you. Why?
"Because your ear is completely blocked." (ear wax)
He checked the other, and the other ear was almost completely blocked too.
He then asks mini-doc:

"Do you want to look at Madame's ear wax?"

well. That sure isn't a phrase I expected to be hearing about myself.
So sure enough mini-doc takes the ear-thingy and checks out my earwax.

I think most of us aren't used to the feeling of being scrutinized as modern medical marvels.

Actually, I had noticed my ears were a bit waxier. Ah well. Guess it is from shoving ear plugs in my ears all the time (to block out annoying people on their cellphones on the 6-hour train ride to Strasbourg, the traffic noise while trying to sleep, the darn accordion player).

Hey doctor, I have some bunions on my feet and a weird mole at the bottom of my back if you want to really impress him.....

The doctor gave me some drops to put in my ears at night. Oh, and for the cough, no clue what is causing it. I think it is just the climate here.

Move to France and get waxy ears and a permanent hacking cough in winter!
(At least the cheese is good.)