"Oh my God!" is not a confidence building response

It's Monday morning and I am sitting in quite possibly the nicest offices I have ever sat in. Now I have farted through some very nice fabric in my life, but nothing compares to what my big old butt was parked on right then and there. I look around and all I see is refinery at every corner, A Lalique crystal chandelier hanging in the foyer that is so big, you could build a fort inside it. The rugs on the floor are obviously Persian, antique, and authentic, meaning they cost more than my college education. The chairs I described earlier, were all the fancy schmancy types with scrolled and scalloped tops and intricate carvings in the back and legs, like something you'd see a wine and cheese type Authority on "Antiques Road Show" get the vapors over. This was some really nice stuff. I had been in so many doctors offices over the past few months, I was looking forward to reading a "Road & Track", "Automobile" or "Car & Driver" as I waited for my appointment to arrive. I was used to any appointment with a doctor taking place thirty minutes after the actual time it had been set. It was the American way, as far as the Doctors I had been exposed to.

My bride and I arrived our standard 25 minutes early to check in and be available to fill out paper work and forms, again, standard operating procedure for the medicine men I had grown accustomed to. My wife worked for a doctor back then and she understood the protocol of what was considered too early to show up and what was too late. Usually twenty five minutes early was acceptable, anything more than that and it was downright annoying for the staff. Of course, we had left an hour early, trying to allow for heavy traffic going into Atlanta at morning rush hour. I-20 east bound was so clogged I could have walked to the doctor's office faster than our vehicle was carrying us, and I had a broke leg, bad knee and crutches. It had never changed, the traffic I mean, and this day was no different than any other. One notable difference I am reminded of however, was every one driving was paying attention to the road. Cell phones weren't readily available to the buying population, and if you had one, you had a chauffeur and weren't driving anyway. A cellular phone back then was the size of a breadbox with a thick black cord attached and a handset the size of a fresh roll of paper towels. It was mostly coffee drinkers and the occasional newspaper reader back then, and maybe the occasional guy building a ship in a bottle. Traffic was that slow. And folks were a lot friendlier then too, meaning everyone was in the same hurry and stuck in the same mess. That's what I miss the most. It reminds me that cell phones have sucked good manners and basic decency right out of people.

I found my seat, but not before my sweetheart made me wipe my feet outside the doctors office. That was after she opened the door and saw how fancy his digs were. She went to the stained glass sliding window and told the attendant we had arrived, then came back to the seat next to where I had planted my fanny and told me they didn't have any paper work for us to fill out. She wondered out loud if we were in the right office, so much in fact that she excused herself to walk out into the lobby of the giant office building the high brow doctor I was visiting occupied, just to double check to see if we were indeed in the right place. Much to her surprise, we were. But no paper work up front, nothing to fill out, no copying of insurance cards or drivers licenses...nothing. She was offered a cappuccino and a crumpet, which she turned down, and was told the doctor was on schedule and our appointment was to be "on time". She came back, looking drawn, and wondered out loud if we might have to give up our first born before we left. She wasn't used to this kind of treatment from any doctor, much less one who had the kind of decorations in his waiting area that we could sell and pay off the mortgage on our house, post auction. I sat and rifled thru the magazines, figuring a doctor this fancy would have the latest, greatest car mags printed before they hit the stands. All I found were magazines that resembled soft back books, published bi-monthly, with titles like "Modern Yatching" and "Rug & Chair'...not a decent car magazine in the joint. This was not going to go well, I thought. I was not impressed.

I was the only person to be seen that morning, I assumed, as my lovely bride and I were the only occupants in the formal living room that doubled as a doctors waiting area that day. On cue, we were called in at straight up 9:30, on time, and marched back to the nicest room I have ever seen where medicine might get practiced, unless you want to count psychologists and psychiatrists, which I don't take serious enough anyway. I'm guessing real doctors don't either. The same fancy chairs that were out in the lobby were given a back seat to the butt parking devices in this room. The big table I was to sit on for my examination was brushed titanium and leather, and nicer than anything I had ever seen. There were a few Picasso's' hanging in the office and a Leroy Neiman also. This guy was loaded and I was certain we couldn't afford the kind of freight he was going to require if he accepted us into his coven. This guy had to have made a deal with the devil. Or someone who knew the devil. Something. I sat for only a few minutes when a gorgeous blond bombshell in a doctors coat came in and drew blood, took my temperature and my blood pressure, and asked how I was feeling "in general". Looking at her with her perfect everything, I knew she was a by-product of the plastic surgeon I was about to have face time with. When she left, my bride commented on how lovely she was, and without hesitation I replied, "all store bought". She immediately asked me how I might know that so fast and I said "I had a bachelor party before we got married" before I knew what I was saying. I could sense the look from her that said "we'll finish this conversation at a later date" me not making direct eye contact with her A few seconds later in walks Dr. Zubowitz with another bombshell at his side. This time she was brunette, my favorite color, and a stunner. I am going to make this perfectly clear, I am a one woman man, and I worship my bride, but I am not blind. And that's all I have to say about that.

He snapped on a pair of rubber gloves so fast I couldn't see his hands move, and on cue the assistant did the same. He extended his hand to mine and introduced himself, a note of a carefully hidden Yankee accent, maybe Bostonian, by the way he pronounced his "r" s. He looked at my lovely bride and went into immediate suave and debonaire mode with her, saying how he knew how much she must have had to endure through this trial, her hand in his with the other patting the top of her hand as he spoke. This dude was good. He sucked my wife right in with that bit of showmanship. I knew I'd better watch this guy. He was dangerous. Hansom, rich, doctor, "Modern Yatching" magazines, Picasso' and Neimans' hanging on the walls. He was not to be trusted. He then looked at me and said, "What have we gotten ourselves into, Mr. Hall?" with a sneaky grin. "I see that your temperature and blood pressure are elevated" (I didn't want him to know it was because of the Playboy Playmates he had a nurses) "and your blood shows signs of recent infection". I asked him how he knew that, and he said it was from the blood analysis they had done on the sample he had drawn earlier, like ten minutes earlier, and he said "Yes". Dammmnnnn. I was used to waiting two to three days for any results, and that was "expedited". This was going to be expensive. I only hoped my insurance company hadn't sent a scout to this guys office before my visit. They would have given me a preemptive "CLAIM DENIED" on the spot.

"Lets have a look at your wound site, shall we?" he said as his assistant, I'll call Miss July, handed him a pair of the nicest doctors scissors I have ever seen. He began to cut from the bottom to the top, meticulously, as not to bang into any of the handy work my previous mechanics had attempted. As he cut, the bandages crunched from the dried oozing sap any wound secretes when a body is trying to heal itself. Mine just did it in pints, my wound site was so large. He asked if we had changed the bandages in the last few days, and we assured him that we changed them that morning and at least three times a day, sometimes four, depending on how much absorption the bandages could sustain. He was just about to finish his cut when I asked him, "Doc, you ready for this?" referring to what he was about to see. He looked at me and told me, "My friend, I am the number one penis rebuilder in the country, I have seen men's penises shot off, burned, torn, you name it, I have seen it", then he added "and repaired them all." with a tone of confidence that said been there, done that, Harvard School of Medicine style. He slowly began to peel back the bandages when I interrupted him, "Wait a minute, Doc, you said 'shot off'? What do you mean shot off?' He said without hesitation, "You would not believe the wives and girlfriends who find out their husbands have been unfaithful to them, then take a gun and shoot them in the crotch." And he said it "matter of fact-ly" like he was ordering Eggs Benedict for breakfast from his favorite country club waiter. I wanted to ask him a few more questions, but I figured he and I could share war stories later, when the ladies weren't around.

He peeled back the layers of my crunchy bandages and found the payload he had been looking for. I had seen it a few hundred times in the last two and one half months, so it was no surprise to me. My bride either. She had changed and carefully cleaned my busted leg parts numerous times, and without a flinch. The wound site  was open, exposing my tibia and fibula, the muscle tissue splayed out so it could "heal from the inside out" a term that means "you are screwed", I have come to learn. The giant stainless steel plate shining in a bed of red muscle and tissue, all beaten and ragged from the numerous unsuccessful procedures from my previous doctor. The white of my bone a stark contrast to the blood red and polished chrome of the plate that held my big leg bone together. I told Dr. Zobowitz " I guess this masterpiece defines the word 'practice' when it comes to surgery. But I always read that practice makes perfect, not the case here I'm guessing." He looked up at me with a grin that said he knew what I meant but wasn't going to comment for legal reasons, or whatever deal Doctors have between each other concerning criticism of the others craft. I understood that. Miss July was at a bank of cabinets along the wall, retrieving a few items for the good doctor while he removed the bandages I had walked in his fine office wearing. She was taking her time, I guessed, when Doc asked her if she was having any difficulty finding what he asked for. On cue, she turned and walked to the table were we were conducting our business. The way the Dr. Zubowitz was positioned, Miss July had to walk around to the side of the table, opposite of the side where my bride sat, to assist. When she looked down at what her boss was working on, she dropped the solutions and particulars she had been asked to retrieve. Her eyes got big and round and she turned a little pale. And then she said, and I quote:

"OH MY GOD!"


More tomorrow. It gets better. Relatively speaking, of course.