Muammar Al Khadafi

"...gonna Thorazine shuffle straight out that door,....
head to the farm and find me a cure".

Dropkick Murphy's
Sunshine Highway

I had awakened yesterday to the irritating sound of my alarm clock.

This is usually a somewhat sporadic occurrence due to the fact that I work second shift and nary have the need for a predetermined wake time.

The sans alarm clock is one of the benefits of working the night shift.

Yet, I was forced to employ the services of the hardly used device due to the fact that I had a doctor's appointment.

I had awakened and began to move my atrophying frame into action.....slow action at that,.... but action,.... nonetheless.

I made sure to breakfast with something of a heavy nature due to the fact that my doctor is one who likes to do lab work at the drop of a hat.

I, on the other hand, do not like to have lab work done,....even if it's in my best interest,....because the procurers of my health insurance deem it necessary that I pay the brunt of said lab work.

Therefore, I breakfast.

The act of breakfasting heads off at the pass, if you will, the inevitable request for lab work from my competent physician. It behoves me to have a fair amount of sugar in my system,....so I can tell him, in all honesty, that I ate something this morning.

If I can honestly answer his query about the state of my stomach, he will not order the lab work that he seems to think I need,....therefore, I saveth my much needed farthings.....even if I remain blind to the state of my arteries.

I breakfasted on some leftover vegetarian chili that was made in a moment of boredom during the snowstorm this past weekend.

I then toiled in the care of my appearance.

I showered and applied the required, necessary balms that aid in one smelling less. I cleaned my teeth and ran a Q-tip through the ears..... and combed the natty rat's nest of my remaining hairline.

I then donned some "normal" day clothes.

Clean undergarments and socks,....my best pair of jeans and a sweater....and my finest cloth cap and cloth overcoat.... and headed out into the morning light so as to keep my meeting with my family physician.

It was an 11 a.m. meeting with Dr. Robert.

Dr. Robert is half of the whole in his practice. He plies his trade with his brother, Dr. Jack.

Dr. Robert and Dr. Jack had acquired their controlling interest in their offices from our prior family physician, Dr. Tom.

Dr. Tom had decided that he had enough of the practice of medicine and retired. How much of this was due to me....remains a mystery.

Dr. Tom had something like 13 kids and it was deemed that, since he made a killing (pardon the pun) in his trade, he had enough money to be financially secure to transition from the practice into the serene life of a country squire.

"Life is too short", I'm sure he must have thought, "to be putting up with this crap for the next twenty years".

I can't say that I harbour any ill-will towards Dr. Tom.

I was sad to see his departure but understood his reasoning. I think if I was in his position, I would have, also, retired when I was able to do so.

I motored down the interstate thoroughfare until I reached their offices on the Independence Strand.

I arrived at their outer rooms with fifteen minutes to spare.

It is my habit to arrive early..... so as to beat the lunch-rush of people who decide, at the last moment, to employ their services in an impromptu fashion.

Since the practice is also an Urgi-care facility, one does not need an appointment to be seen by the physician.

And since there are really people, unlike me, who can't decide when it is they are sick and show up whenever they want to,....I usually allow for some extra time.... should I be required to be in a position to employ extra patience.

I dutifully approached the closed window and knocked on it.....with my ring.

(There is nothing more irritating than the sound of metal on glass.

Knowing this, I always make the extra effort to knock on glass with something of a metallic nature. This endears me to the people who surround me and somehow lets them know that I am an important person who does not like to be trifled with.)

The smoky, sliding-glass window was opened by a receptionist who is known for her business acumen and lack of patience....with people who knock on glass with rings.

She greeted me with a half-smile and automatically asked if I had a "co-pay".

(I briefly toyed with the idea of telling her that I did NOT have a co-pay.....that I had "premium" coverage....that I am in the esteemed position to NOT have a co-pay....unlike the dregs who surrounded me.....in the hopes that they would take my word for it ....and simply go by my assurance I had no advance requirements of a financial nature.....hoping they would forget about it).

I then paid the aforementioned co-pay.... and settled into the comfortable outer-rooms for the wait that I knew was going to transpire.

In their outer-rooms, they have the biggest wall clock that I think I have ever seen inside a closed building.

The reason for such a big clock, as legend has it, is that the now-departed Dr. Tom believed that a waiting room should be devoid of all time-pieces.

There should be no analog,...no digital.... suggestions as to the passage of time spent in waiting.

In an attempt to exorcise the last vestiges of the prior administration, Dr. Robert and Dr. Jack installed the biggest time piece I have ever been in the presence of,....short of Big-Ben....onto the wall of their outer-rooms.

It is situated just above the biggest fish tank that I have ever seen in my life.

Granted, the real-estate that this clock and fish-tank occupy is almost obscene, but I always can't help but smile at the subtle obviousness of it all.

The clock is almost this phallic symbol that imparts to the minions that..... "there are new sheriffs in town....and their names are Bob and Jack"!

The waiting in the outer-rooms is something that I should abhor,....but do not.

It seems that their waiting room is always different from the standard waiting rooms of normal people. Something of an interesting nature always transpires in their outer-rooms to entertain me.

The last time I visited Dr. Robert, a midget walked in.

I love midgets. They're God's little punch-lines.

(Before we get off on a "Dan-is-makin'-fun-of-midgets".... thing....again..... that I know you all are thinkin',......just please bear in mind that,.... if you really, really think about it,....who has got a sweeter deal than the midgets?

Midgets live a charmed life, don't they?.....for example,....if a midget is in a five star restaurant, only HE can pull out a big ol' cigar and fire it up after dinner.... with no repercussions.

People think it's endearing and cute.... and it's something that,... in years to come,.... they can tell their grandchildren about.

Midgets don't drive....so they get their friends to do it for them, right?

Just in that alone,.... how much do you save? No car, no car insurance, no potential accidents.

They can't reach the top of the stove so they don't have to cook their own dinner,.... they get handed parts in classic movies like "The Wizard Of Oz" and "The Terror Of Tiny Town"....a movie in which they rode Shetland ponies.....it was an all midget cowboy movie.....the only audition was a yard stick.....

"If you're taller than this stick, you can't be in the movie".

These people are born to entertain.....and I'm not gonna feel sorry for 'em.....because they are the ones reaching up to hold the hand of the stacked, platinum blond.

They always have a platinum blond around 'em.

Go figure.

Theirs is a life in which they won't be resigned to drive a tow-motor for twenty years.....unless they got some Elton John "Tommy" boots.

They can get drunk and rude with a woman in a bar and,...in turn,....get treated with the exasperated affection that one would accord to a spoiled child.

The midgets can do no wrong!)

In any event, the midget approached the closed window to the receptionist's lair,.... reached up and knocked.

The receptionist opened the window and, seeing no one there, closed the window on him.

This innocent action, of course, caused the midget to get furious.....which was all the more entertaining to me,.... the casual observer.

The only thing funnier than a midget.... is a midget piqued in fury.

I desperately tried to hide my laughter behind the current issue of "Rolling Stone" that I was perusing..... that Dr. Robert was kind enough to provide.....but this did no good and I had to remove myself from the waiting room to the lavatory so as to relieve my giggles.....under the guise of relieving my bladder.

Once the giggles were under control, I returned to the waiting room....only to find the midget sittin' in a chair with his feet stickin' straight out because he wasn't tall enough to have the back of his knees reach the edge of the seat that he occupied....and then,.... in my mind's eye,.... I pictured him.... wearing a crown,.... holding a scepter in one hand....and a box of "King Vitamin" cereal in the other.

....to which I was forced to return to the lavatory.

Yesterday, however, I was treated to the entertaining sight of an ambulance arriving and taking a patient from the offices to the hospital.

Nothing instills confidence in a physician like the arrival of an ambulance to his office.

Operating under the assumption that the said patient in question walked in of his own accord,....and is now being taken out on a gurney....the confidence that can be garnered about the doctors' aplomb among his remaining,.... waiting patients.... must be staggering.

I attempted to convince myself that this must be Dr. Jack's doing and Dr. Robert had nothing to do with this....in fact, I half-heartedly convinced myself that Dr. Robert must have been on a coffee break.....and went back to reading Dr. Robert's current issue of "Rolling Stone".

("Rolling Stone" has changed in the respect that they now write like they are talking to three-year-olds....and they actually see hip-hop as a credible form of music. I do so miss the heady days of Hunter S. Thompson and Annie Leibowitz.....)

In any event,....after the excitement of the arrival of the ambulance calmed down,.....I was called into the sacro-sanct inner-offices of Dr. Robert.

Before arriving at the second waiting room, however, I was forced by a nurse to climb upon a digital scale in the hallway.

This, of course, is where the lies begin.

The digital scale read such and such and the nurse dutifully scratched the number into my chart.

I then began to ruminate about how I could justify my weight, when the moment of truth arrives, when Dr. Robert asks me if I'm doin' anything about my heavy frame.

The last time I saw Dr. Robert, he looked at my chart and remarked that I was a bit overweight....to which he paused.... and then wryly commented that we,...meaning I and him,.... are basically the same height and weight....he then slapped me on the back and said,

"Never-mind,....we're doin' pretty good! Nothin' wrong with us"! (wink, wink)

I was taken into the second waiting room,....the room in which I am forced to sit on that crinkly paper,....as if I am a dill pickle in a Jewish deli....and the nurse mechanically did all the things that serve as a precursor to the impending meeting with Dr. Robert.

Pulse,.... blood pressure.... and that mini pre-interview in which I was to proclaim to her the malady that I was now suffering from.

I told this kind lady that that there was no malady and I was simply there to renew the prescription that the kind doctor saw fit to keep me on when the offices changed hands.

I told her that I was on such and such medicine, for my depression, and she in turn asked me how many milligrams..... to which I replied, "45".

She said, "OK,....four point five".

I corrected her and stated, "Ummm....that's forty-five....no point".

She then looked at me,... all of a sudden,...like she knew she was alone in a room with a rhino-dart case.....and instantly realized that she would have to go past me to get to the door.

The patient/doctor confidentiality thing begins to take on a whole new meaning at this point.

In the recesses of my brain, I couldn't help but think that my dosage of the much needed anti-depressant medicine was now going to be a topic of conversation during the noon-hour, back-room lunch of Subway sandwiches and Algonquian round-table discussion among the nurses and clerical staff.....unless it was my paranoia just rearin' it's ugly head.

She had taken her leave and left me alone in the second waiting room.

There I sat....staring silently at a Norman Rockwell portrait of a doctor using a stethoscope on a little girl's doll.

I get bored in the second waiting room,.... so I began to thumb through the pamphlets that are there for the expressed purpose of making you think you have somethin' that you didn't think you had,....until that very moment, of course.

Diabetes,....high blood pressure,....sleeplessness.....neuralgia.

These pamphlets make for an interesting read.....then you get bored with those and start playin' with the little, plastic models of the organs of the body.

Cut-away versions of mini kidneys and arteries that are supposed to demonstrate how these said organs of the body work.

Most of the time, they are pretty realistic,....even if they are about ten times too small and are made of cheap, Korean plastic.....and they always have the color blue in there somewhere.....like there is the colour electric blue somewhere in your internal system.....it's usually there to underscore the ailment that the said model is supposed to represent....like cholesterol....that nasty plaque build-up in your arteries due to the ingestion of too much pork or fried food.....

Speakin' of which,....I knew that I was gonna have to dodge the whole lab work thing again.

I began to steel myself for what was to come.

At that moment, a wild-eyed and haggard Dr. Robert walked in....and I immediately put down the model of a colon that I was lookin' at and jumped back up on the deli paper.

He was reading my chart and asked me how it was goin'.

I said, "fine".

He then began to congratulate me on the pound that I had lost since the last time I saw him.

I lost one pound.

He asked about the regimen that caused the losing of one pound.

"Do you work out?....diet?....What's your secret, pal....cause you could make a million bucks if you went public with it".

This kind of brow-beating is supposed to be good-natured and comical.....but all it succeeded in doing was make me more self-conscious about my weight.

I know that I am fa.....chubby.

I don't need to be reminded that I am chubby.

Besides that, some women like a little chub on their man....and I got the chub, man.

John Belushi was chubby....Keith Moon was chubby....Chris Farley was chubby....(wait a minute,...Chris Farley was a fat sow.)....Mama Cass was chubby.

...Mother Teresa was chubby.....

Of course,.... then it dawned on me that all these people are dead.

I reminded him that we are about the same weight and he said,

"I don't think so, Fatso.....I lost 5 pounds.....that's five times what you lost.....when you gonna do somethin' about that extra weight that you're carryin' around?.....you still on the Vytorin that I put you on?....let's do some labs and find out where your cholesterol is at....it's been a while since we had that checked".

I put him off by sayin' that I had just finished payin' the bill for the last labs he had done.

He was not dissuaded.

"Have you eaten breakfast today?.....we need to get those labs done....it's been too long".

And there was my ace in the hole.

I told him that I had breakfasted on some vegetarian chili.... and that I had about four cups of coffee..... with a lot of sugar in them.

I then began to regale him with how good I've been eating, as of late, and that my cholesterol should be on the up-swing...(or is it down-swing?)..... as we speak.

He then told me that "it looks bad" for him if he doesn't get my cholesterol checked.....I couldn't help but think of who "it looks bad" to.

Who is this doctor reporting to?... His brother?

Do they have a staff meetings,....just the two of them,....and go over the labs of pleasingly portly people,...such as myself?

Just who is he reporting this to?

He then took out that little light thingy and began to look in my ears and mouth and nose.

He informed me that my right ear needed my attention in the form of a Q-tip....not in a major way, of course, just a swipe....

He listened to my heartbeat and then began to probe my mid-section in a very disinterested and clinical manner.

He asked me if I felt OK and asked me how that tennis elbow that I have is doin'.

I responded with a sigh and a "fine".

He sat down on that little doctor stool and began to write out my prescription.

He asked about how the depression was doin'.

I told him that I no longer have the impulse to climb upon a clock tower with a thirty-odd-six.

He said that was good and that "we" will stay the course with the medicine.

I told him that would be great because it has been workin' well for nine years now.

(Dr. Tom,....a long time ago,...asked me what medicine I was on for depression. I told him that I wasn't on any and he let out the loudest.... most sustained....laugh I have ever heard in my life..... while simultaneously pulling out his prescription pad and pen.

He then, through the laughter, said, "You will be on a depression meds for the rest of your life, young man".....to which I began to laugh and say, "OK"!)

In any event, I sensed that Dr. Robert was a bit put out about the whole lab work thing so,... again,.... I began to muse about how good I've been eating as of late.

I told him that I have pretty much cut out Big Macs as a main meal.

It was then that he stopped writing in my chart and got a very far off look..... It was as if he was getting reflective.....his eyes glazed over.

Then,.... after some thought,.... he began to talk about the Big Mac.

"Ya know how when you eat a Big Mac.... it's always like you have to use two hands?....you can't eat a Big Mac with just one hand....it's like the perfect hamburger.....with all that special Thousand Island sauce.... placed just right....I can't think of anything you can add to a Big Mac to make it better....It's like it has the perfect amount of ingredients.....and it's always as if everyone around you always knows when you ate a Big Mac because there's that certain distinct smell that you carry around with you for a while after you eat it......it's got that great McDonald's cheese that can't seem to be replicated anywhere else"....

I sat and listened.

"....the Big Mac is not really THAT bad for you, ya know....it' not like it will kill you if you keep it in moderation....I don't think there's anything wrong with having a Big Mac every now and then....I can say that because I'm a doctor"....

He then handed me my script, bade me farewell and left the room.

I then donned my jacket and left his offices.

I checked my watch..... It was 11:50 a.m......just in time for McDonald's to start serving lunch....

Anyway,...