Take a spin

The house is honored to have you at the table.

Three reels: what hurts, your plan and your doctor. Pull the lever, and the house will tell you your price. Spins are on the house.*

*The house will bill you for them.

The reels never line up. One holds what hurts, one holds your plan, one holds your doctor, and nothing on one ever appears on another. No one has hit the jackpot, and no one will.†

†A casino has to let someone win now and then. The house does not, and likes it that way.

The machine, with its cover off

Observe: your body sets the first reel. Your employer set the second before you sat down. Once both have stopped, the house sets everything else: which doctor you see, what the doctor is paid, and when either of you finds out.

Not even the doctor knows the price, not at first. The doctor finds out six weeks later, the same day you do, and has to write it down somewhere, because the house will not. At the next negotiation, the house has a different price.

Seen here: the house, working out your price.

Go to provern