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    They seem like nice people.
    Now that you’ve met the neighbors, it’s time to start locating some of the “necessities of life.” If you have small children, you need to find a Pediatric Group where you can go and sit in the waiting room when your children get their ears infected, which is approximately four times per child per week.
    Notice I say “Pediatric Group,” not “Pediatrician.” There are no longer any Lone Ranger-style pediatricians, because it is considered a serious violation of modern medical ethics for a child to see the same doctor twice during the child’s lifetime. This is why you sometimes must wait so long in the waiting room: The Pediatric Group is flying in a new doctor, sometimes from as far away as Malaysia, solely to avoid having your child see a familiar face. This is also why, in selecting a new Pediatric Group, the most important factor is not the doctors,
but the person who answers the phone
, because you will spend a large portion of your life talking with this person:
    Choosing a pediatric group

    PHONE PERSON : Good afternoon, this is Pediatricians Backwards “R” Us; how may we help you?
    YOU : Hi, this is Mrs. Evans, and my son, Thad, has been having these kind of strange-shaped bowel movements, and last time this happened we saw Dr. Wexler, and he said if it happened again we should call and—
    PHONE PERSON : Well, of course you realize you can’t see Dr. Wexler ever again.
    YOU : Yes, of course, but I was wondering if maybe Dr. Bunderson—
    PHONE PERSON (suspiciously): How do you know Dr. Bunderson? Have you seen him before?
    YOU (quickly): No! No! Really! I just heard of him, that’s all. From a friend.
    PHONE PERSON : Well, in that case, please hold.
    *** eighteen-minute pause ***
    PHONE PERSON : Dr. Bunderson wants to know what you mean by “strange-shaped.”
    YOU : Well, kind of like M & M’s.
    PHONE PERSON : Please hold.
    *** twenty-three-minute pause ***
    PHONE PERSON : Plain or peanut?
    YOU : Plain. Shall I hold?
    PHONE PERSON : Of course.
    *** Forty-nine-minute pause ***
    PHONE PERSON : Dr. Bunderson wants you to bring Thad in and sit in the waiting room for two hours reading books withnames like
Billy the Bunny Bumps His Nose
and listening to children shriek behind closed doors, after which Dr. Bunderson will see you for slightly under a minute and a half and prescribe a medicine that you have to administer anally when your child is sleeping and that costs as much per ounce as a round-trip Concorde ticket to Paris, France.
    YOU (gratefully): Thank you.
    Important as it is to find a Pediatric Group, it is not the
most
important task, because it is merely a matter of life and death, which means it pales by comparison with the task of:
FINDING SOMEBODY TO FIX YOUR CAR
    This has become very difficult in recent years, because most gas stations have switched over to being “convenience” stores, meaning that, in addition to gas, they sell food such as bologna sandwichescreated right around the time of the Big Bang. But they do not fix cars. You pull into a modern gas station with an actual car problem, and odds are that the cashier, sitting behind the bulletproof glass watching MTV, will have the police come and arrest you for blocking the access of legitimate customers wishing to purchase Slim Jims, cheap sunglasses, and Tic-Tac breath mints.
    The reason gas stations sell food, of course, is that the supermarkets are busy cashing checks. The supermarkets have to cash checks because the banks are busy mailing unsolicited credit cards to everybody in the Western Hemisphere. The result is that very few people fix cars.
    The best way to select a new mechanic is