It’s the late afternoon and I walk into the bedroom. Lizzie’s lying on the bed (as she does a lot more now than she used to).
She gives me one of her intense I’m going to tell you something important now and you’d better listen ‘cause there’ll be a test afterwards looks.
She holds up a digital thermometer – one I bought from [a famous brand/shop] a month or so before – and says ‘can you please take your temperature?’
I shrug and do it (easier just to comply than to ask why – a rhyme I might have put on my gravestone).
The temperature of my left ear is 75.8. Low.
The temperature of my right ear is 75.1. Even lower.
Lizzie looks at me scornfully. Of course it’s low, you cold-hearted bastard her expression seems to suggest.
‘My office was very cold,’ I protest, pointlessly (I’d been sitting in my office, moments before).
Lizzie ignores me. She’s got bigger things on her mind.
‘So now,’ she says, ‘take your temperature with this.’
Like a magic trick, she pulls out the digital thermometer again… the one she just gave me. The SAME thermometer!
Except, of course, it isn’t the same thermometer. It’s another one, which we bought a year or so ago – the exact same make and model, just older.
I take the second, older thermometer from Lizzie. ‘Don’t mix them up!’ Lizzie practically yells. So I put the first, newer thermometer on the bed.
I now take my temperature, with the second, older thermometer.
The temperature of my left ear is 76.8. Weird.
The temperature of my right ear is 76.1. Even weirder.
‘Huh,’ I say. ‘One of them isn’t working properly.’
‘I’m really cross!’ says Lizzie crossly, rising to her theme. ‘I’ve being taking my temperature with this…’ she holds up the newer thermometer from the bed (the one which calculated my temperature as the very low 75.8 and 75.1), ‘for WEEKS… and it’s been telling me the wrong temperature! It’s been taking a degree off! I could have had a fever and I wouldn’t have known! I could have needed to go to hospital… and I wouldn’t have known!’
Note: Lizzie’s not overstating things here… if she gets a temperature, she could end up in the hospital. As she’s told me on several occasions, when you have chemo you’re at an increased risk of sepsis – which is potentially lethal – and a raised temperature can be a sign of an onset of this.
Back to Lizzie and my conversation about thermometers in the present… I could point out to her, here, that it might be the older thermometer which is wrong. Or they could both be a little bit wrong. But I get Lizzie’s anger. The point is, the two thermometers should clock in at the same temperature. Isn’t that the point of them? But they don’t.
Does this mean we can’t trust ANY products we buy? From ANY chemist in the country? In the WORLD? ALL the products might show us potentially misleading results? The repercussions seem enormous.
‘AND they cost thirty quid each!’ I point out, characteristically getting stuck on completely the wrong detail.
Lizzie frowns.
She holds up the newer thermometer again. ‘I want you to take this back to [the famous brand/shop]… and make a complaint!’
Lizzie must be angry. She usually doesn’t encourage me to complain about anything. She’s too middle class.
I think about this.
‘What’s [the famous brand/shop] actually going to do though?’ I reason. ‘Just change the thermometer?’
Lizzie arches an eyebrow. Where are you going with this?
‘I say,’ I continue, getting excited, ‘we think bigger. We take this to the TOP…’
Lizzie nods slowly. Continue…
‘We FILM you using both thermometers,’ I continue, ‘showing how shite they are. Then you explain on camera how they could have KILLED you by getting your temperature wrong!’
Lizzie doesn’t say anything, as she takes this in.
‘Then we email the video to [the famous brand/shop]’s headquarters… and the national papers… and we change the course of modern pharmaceutical retail, potentially saving the lives of millions!’ I conclude triumphantly, like the main character in a 1970s conspiracy-theory movie.
I look at Lizzie defiantly, waiting for her to shoot the idea down. I know she’s far too polite and middle class to ever embark on such a venture. Even if it would save millions.
Lizzie’s face, however, slowly breaks out into a smile. ‘I could take my hat off in the video,’ she suggests, her eyes growing wide with excitement. ‘So they can see my bald head! THAT would show them!’
‘YEAH!’ I whoop. ‘Now we’re talking!’
P. D. Clifton 
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