When my mother had surgery for a kidney tumor, dad and I sat in a large waiting room.
Well, I sat. He paced around. Or napped.
The chairs were comfortable, but couldn’t be moved. And the arm rests made it impossible to sleep across them.
There was no receptionist. Maybe if I grabbed her chair…
Dad got it, propped his feet up.
Stuck his tongue out at me.
The wall had a long mural, starting from a sunrise where children ran out and played, progressively getting older, until old people walked into the sunset.
Where the bathrooms were, of course.
Tag: medical
Itchy Trigger Finger
Stone Ridge needed a doctor, so I hopped on the first train out.
When I arrived, sheriff welcomed me, pointed out some sights, and warned me about Bobcat Murphy: “He’s got an itchy trigger finger.”
Oh. Good.
A client.
I grabbed my bag and headed to the Murphy Ranch.
Bobcat put a gun to my head and said “What do you want, stranger?”
“Doctor,” I said. “Doctor Roberts, and I have a cream for your itch.”
Bobcat sighed. “Great,” he said. He put down the gun and dropped his pants.
Curing his jock itch cured the itchy trigger finger, too.
Antidepressors
My doctor’s a little weird.
Instead of using tongue depressors, he calls them tongue anti-depressors.
“Because nothing’s more sad than an unhappy tongue,” he says. “I want my patients to be happy, and that includes their tongues! A happy tongue doesn’t mind being held in the face of rumor, and it certainly doesn’t wag along, let alone get gotten by a cat!”
It took a minute to digest all that before I had the nerve to ask “So, what makes them anti-depressors instead of depressors?”
“I soak them in tequila,” he says.
Which explains the lime and salt, I suppose.
Dr. Vickers
Dr. Vickers told me there’s only three directions you can run:
To something.
Away from something.
And in circles.
Ten years of coming here, laying on this couch and telling him everything.
He takes a stack of notes from his desk drawer.
“Do you know what this is?” he asks.
I shake my head.
“It’s you,” he says.
He walks to his fireplace and tosses the notes on to the fire.
“You’ve been going in circles all this time. Now, you’re going to leave here.”
“Where will I go?” I ask.
“That’s your decision,” he says, and opens the door.
Synesbleedathesia
Ever hear music so awful it makes your ears bleed?
Or see something so awful, it makes your eyes bleed?
Well, that’s to be expected, but it’s when you hear something so awful it makes your eyes bleed, that’s a crosswiring of the sensory organs.
Since Synesthesia is when auditory stimuli cause you to sense smells or see visions, or seeing colors when you see numbers, we’ll call it Synesbleedathesia when one sensory input causes another to output blood.
As for hearing things or seeing things that make your ass bleed, well, that’s salmonella.
Stop eating raw eggs, you idiot.
Drug Problem
Two tablets of worry, chewable.
One tablet of fear, swallowed whole. If you feel light-headed, do not operate heavy machinery or operate a motor vehicle.
Three capsules of lust, taken with milk or mashed up in applesauce.
One tube of hunger, to be smeared on the thighs daily and allowed to dry before dressing.
Two drops of envy, one for each eye. May cause temporary blindness. If condition persists for more than four hours, purchase a dog and a cane.
And finally, one shot of…
What? You’re afraid of needles?
Shit. I should have given you this one first then.
Turning Evil
The Black Rhinoceros recently became extinct.
Poachers hunted the species to extinction because traditional Chinese medicine says their pulverized horns are used for banishing demons.
Many other species are also being hunted to extinction because of similar bogus medical practices.
Since fining poachers and impounding poached material hasn’t worked, I proposed a new solution:
A new branch of quack medicine where the dried and powdered hearts of poachers made for an anti-aging powder.
As for the Chinese medicine practitioners, their pituitary glands make for excellent protection from income tax audits.
When you can’t defeat evil alone, turn evil on itself.
Fresh Breath Of Fear
A long time ago, I had a bronchial infection.
The doctor prescribed antibiotics, painkillers, and inhalers.
The weird thing is, after I’d take a puff of the inhaler, I lost my fear of heights.
I could lean over railings or ride glass elevators, and instead of freaking out, I’d look around and enjoy the view.
I’m sure it wasn’t the antibiotics or painkillers, because I ran out of those eventually, but had plenty of inhalers.
They didn’t last forever, though, and the fear came back.
At least asthmatics can’t put up much of a fight when I need a fix.
Drill
Due to an error in Shipping, my dentist received a deep-ocean oil drill instead of the replacement enamel drill he’d ordered.
My tooth was killing me, though, and the referral was across town, so we went through with the appointment anyway.
I swear, I went through three tanks of nitrous, and damn if that thing was uncomfortable, but seven thousand feet down, he struck oil.
After venting off the natural gas, he capped the well, put in a temporary, and made an appointment for next Tuesday to fix a permanent crown.
Sadly, my insurance plan doesn’t cover pumping or tankers.
Uranus
Dave’s sons were at his funeral, in chains and guarded by marshals.
Now, when I say sons, I really mean genetic clones.
Dave grew them in his twenties and raised them as his sons, but an accident at work left him crippled and sick.
His doctors told him they could replace what was damaged with donor material from his sons.
So, he invited them to dinner, drugged them, and faked signatures on consent forms.
When they awoke, they found themselves weary and mutilated.
One was dead, missing his heart and liver.
They had their savage revenge on the medical Uranus.