The Aged Ps' Health Check

I call the Aged Ps one evening and have the rare pleasure of a chat with Dad without Mother picking up the other phone and echoing everything he says or correcting it. Dad, however, is sounding a little downtrodden.
"Y'mother thought it would be good idea to have a health check," he informs me wearily. "I can't say I see the point. If you find out something's wrong, you only worry. But she says she's worried already and she'd rather know exactly what she has to worry about."
"Oh dear," I say. "Well, best just to go along with it I suppose."
"Hmm. It's costing us a fortune though."
It transpires that said health check is to be carried out at a local hotel; the same hotel at which my grandmother's wake was held, I realise. I choose not to mention this fact.
"Bit weird, having a medical appointment in a hotel, isn't it?" I venture. It's not even a nice hotel. The last time I went there the paint was peeling off the walls and the food was along the lines of the catering I remember from school i.e. grey, cold and mostly unrecognisable as actual food.
"Yes," says Dad sighing. "But you know y'mother."
There is no answer to that.
We finish our chat, which surprisingly lasts for a good twenty minutes before Dad says, "Well, as you've probably realised, y'mother isn't in at the moment, so I'll get her to call you when she gets back."
"No really that won't be necess--" I cut in hastily.
"OK, bye then love." Dad puts down the phone.
Half an hour later, the phone rings. It is Mother. She proceeds to tell me everything I have already been told by Dad, only in a much more strident manner.
"I told y'father he needs to lose weight and watch his cholesterol," she barks. "So we're having a--"
"Health check, yes," I say.
"--at the hotel--" she goes on.
"Down the road," I say.
"And it's going to cost--"
"A fortune," I say. "I know, Dad's already told me."
"Oh, has he?" she said. "And did he tell you that I had to nag him into it? He never listens to a word I say."
I wonder why . . . "Didn't you have a check recently?" I say aloud. "I thought you'd had your cholesterol levels checked before Christmas?"
"Yes," says Mother. "But you know what I think about the medical profession. They don't know what they are talking about half the time. I think you can never be too careful and it's always good to get a second opinion - "
From a bunch of people in a hotel, I think. Hmm, yes, they're bound to give you more peace of mind than your own GP.
" - I need to know if I'm going to have an aneurism or a pulmonary embolism or a massive stroke," Mother finishes accusingly, as if I am personally plotting her downfall by one of these methods.
"OK!" I say, in my fake cheery voice. "Well, good luck with all that then."

I call the next day to see how they have got on. Dad answers. He sounds distinctly grumpy. "Well, we went. In The End," he adds ominously.
"Oh?"
"Yes. When it came to it, y'mother had a last minute panic, didn't she? She was up all night saying she didn't want to go as if there was something wrong she didn't want to know about it because it would make her worry, which is EXACTLY WHAT I SAID IN THE FIRST PLACE!"
"What's that?" Mother has picked up the other phone.
"Hi, Mum."
"Oh, it's you," she says.
"Yes. How did the health check go?"
"Bit disappointing really," she says. "It turns out we have absolutely nothing to worry about and we'll probably live for another twenty or thirty years at least."
"That's - great!" I say cautiously.
"No it's not," Dad retorts. "It means I'm going to have to go through this whole palaver over and over again for years and years until y'mother is satisfied that we actually do have something to worry about."
"Well, you know the medical profession," says Mother. "They don't know what they are talking about half the time. I think you can never be too careful and it's always good to get a second opinion."
"Yes, Mother," I say.
There really is no point in saying anything else.