My wife and I are hosting an exchange student from Magidan, Russia. He loves basketball, but to play on the high school team he had to have a physical examination from our local health clinic (also read bank). His physical took all of 15 minutes, if that. Being the nice guy that I am, I told the clinic to send me the bill. Before last night’s flooding of the rink had a chance to completely freeze, I got the bill – $153.

That comes out to be $10.20 a minute, or $612 an hour. Pretty darned good wages, eh? The clinics should give up everything else they do and just concentrate on student sports physicals.

In any event, he passed his physical and I felt as though I had just passed a kidney stone as I paid the bill.

I was left wondering, “Was his bill so high because he’s Russian? Did the clinic think he was part of some communist plot to overthrow the Dirigo basketball program?”

The Iron Curtain has been replaced by dollar bills, and lots of them.

What’s up with this?

Tim Hanson, Dixfield