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How to Get What you Want: Fear, Rationality, and Compliance with Authority
Coming up I-5 in central California on a stormy night in January 2017, the hour was late, the torrents of rain were making it hard to see through the windshield, so we, my wife and I, thought it best to stop.
We turned off the freeway and headed for Los Banos, 10 miles east. There we bedded down at a nameless motel after having diner next door at a down in the mouth Italian restaurant.
The dinner was forgettable, and we had a couple of glasses of house wine; little did I know it would be my last.
Later that night, about 11 p.m. I woke up with an alarming high-speed heartbeat. It was racing at a rapid pace, faster than I had ever experienced. I woke up my wife, and we went to the hospital.
After a conference with the nurse on duty, we gained admittance to the inner sanctum. I guess they didn’t want me to collapse on the floor in front of all those people.
I was admitted into the Minor Procedure Room and told to undress, don a hospital gown, and lie down on a temporary gurney. The passage from ordinary person to sick person was complete.
The attending nurse placed an arterial line in my arm, and the doctor appeared dressed in colorful street clothes. After examining my chart, his first line…