I tried to schedule a simple appointment the way a retired person does it.
Calmly. Confidently.
With the mistaken belief that time is still linear and computers are still here to help, not quietly reorganize your afternoon.
I wasn’t booking a helicopter to Aspen. I wasn’t applying for a passport. I wasn’t enrolling in witness protection.
I just needed an appointment. Click, choose a date, pick a time, done.
That was the plan.
Instead, I got an email that didn’t confirm anything so much as invite me into a polite digital scavenger hunt.
“Please complete your pre-check-in.”
Pre-check-in sounds harmless. Like you’re early, organized, the kind of adult who owns matching luggage.
In practice, it means you’ve just been assigned a small project with no visible finish line.
Step one was creating an account.
I already have accounts.
Enough that if you stacked them up, they would reach the moon and still ask you to include a capital letter, a number, and a symbol you’ve never used before.
Some are for serious things like banking and healthcare. Others are for the one app I used in 2018 to identify a bird and then immediately forgot the password to.
But fine.
Another account. Another password. Another small promise to remember something I will absolutely forget.
Then came the first login.
Email. Password. Code sent to phone. Enter code.
Success.
I felt a brief moment of pride, which is a dangerous emotion in modern life.
The next screen asked me to log in again.
Not “continue.” Not “return to your appointment.”
Log in.
Again.
I stared at it like it had just asked me to prove I can still parallel park under pressure.
So I did it.
Email. Password. Code. Enter code.
Success.
Then, like a plot twist no one needed, it asked me to log in a third time.
At that point I wasn’t sure if I was checking in for healthcare or applying for security clearance.
I started wondering if my doctor had a second job somewhere classified and I was now part of a low-stakes mission called “Operation Routine Physical.”
This is how modern life works now.
Nothing stays simple.
An “appointment” used to be a person. You called, someone answered, you negotiated Tuesday versus Thursday, and you wrote it down.
Paper never once texted you a code to confirm you were still you.
Now an appointment is an ecosystem.
There’s the portal. The app. The texts. The emails reminding you that you will soon be reminded again, just in case you forgot you were about to remember.
It doesn’t feel like scheduling.
It feels like onboarding.
Then come the forms.
Confirm your address. Confirm your insurance.
Confirm your emergency contact. Confirm them again, just in case something changed since last Tuesday.
Then it asks the big question:
“Do you have any symptoms?”
The list is so long that by the end you’re thinking… maybe.
Maybe I do have dizziness, fatigue, heartburn, joint pain, and a general sensation of being alive in 2026.
The medication section is my favorite.
Not just what you take. The dosage. The frequency. The time of day.
Meanwhile I’m sitting there thinking, I take the little white one in the morning and the other one when I remember.
Do you want accuracy or do you want optimism?
Then comes verification, because modern systems trust no one.
A code goes to your phone. You enter it.
Then it says, “We have sent another code.”
You wait like you’re hoping to hear your name called on a game show you didn’t remember entering.
There’s a button that says, “Save and continue later.”
I appreciate that.
It feels like the system acknowledging you may need to step away and regroup as a person.
Eventually, you reach the final instruction:
“Please arrive 15 minutes early.”
That part always makes me laugh.
I have already arrived early.
I’ve been here for forty-five minutes, in my own home, proving that I am me to a series of increasingly skeptical systems.
Now you want me to show up early in person.
The funny thing is, it does work.
Eventually the appointment is scheduled. Eventually the forms are submitted.
And when you walk into the office, there is still a human being at the front desk.
A real person.
They smile, hand you a clipboard, and ask you to fill out a form.
I look at the clipboard like it’s a vintage artifact.
Paper. A pen.
No codes. No portals.
For a brief moment, it all feels simple again.
Then I remember I’ll have to log into the portal later to see the results.
Modern life works.
It just works a little louder than it used to… and asks for three logins to get you to Tuesday at 10:30.
# # #
If this is your kind of calm, tap Like so I know. A Restack sends it back out into the universe to find another reader.
Steady on,
Bill Black
Porch Caretaker & Humble Observer
Before you wander off, here are a few more:
I never hit the “Save and continue later” button. That’s just asking for trouble. There's a 50/50 chance I’ll be starting over.
I can't hit like. I don't like it but I do it anyway, with often the same symptoms you describe. But on one point I must challenge you. Have you really looked closely at the receptionist? I thought I saw a little flicker of light pass over an eye that made me ask, Is this the new AI?