The Eye-Closed Talking Doctor

I’ve been complaining for the past three weeks about the plague that’s over-taken our lovely square-shaped abode.

The boy kicked things off with a stellar four-day 103-temperature caused by a lovely viral infection.

I quickly followed by becoming victim #2.

I’ll save you the details and leave you with the knowledge that my wife is a freakin’ saint for having to deal with sick me.

Then…the girl caught it.

Envision Gary Coleman stuck in quicksand, wearing a straight jacket, while saying the ABCs backwards and trying his hardest to take steroids away from Hulk Hogan. That’s what my daughter’s immune system is like trying to fight any sickness.

For five days she’s been dealing with a fever, pink eye in both eyes, and yesterday morning…puking.

So, yesterday afternoon we decided enough’s enough and that’s when we took her to the doctor.

I’m a bit of a germ freak…for the main reason that I don’t want to get sick. So walking into a pediatrician’s office is like asking me to lick just one ball from a Chuck-E-Cheese ball pit.

My visits usually start with me walking in holding all the door handles so my already sick daughter doesn’t – stupid, I know.

I walk up to the counter and immediately locate and use the hand sanitizer thingy.

I then sign in and get another squirt after putting the pen down.

This is followed by me having to pick the pen back up to sign my co-pay receipt which is quickly followed by another sanitizing squirt.

I’m exhausted just writing this.

We make it back to the waiting room and that’s when the doctor rolls in.

Completely ignoring me he walks up to my daughter and asks her what’s been wrong. Knowing damn well my six-year-old shy-as-hell daughter wasn’t going to give him the blow-by-blow of her illness I chimed in.

He looks her over, does some kid-friendly stuff to get her to cooperate, then gets on the computer to log-in the diagnosis while we wait.

That’s when it happens.

The man turns to me, looks me in the eyes for a split second, closes his eyes and proceeds to explain to me his diagnosis of my daughter’s current condition without opening his eyes again.

I’m sitting there all “is this guy for real? Is this a joke? Should I wave my hand in front of his eyes to see if maybe he’s just got lazy eyelids? Should I look at my daughter and ask her if she’s watching this freaky shit go down too? Should I kindly reach out and thump him in the forehead? Is he broken?”

I was overwhelmed with what was happening right before my eyes!

He was an eye-closing talker.

People who close their eyes for extended periods of time while talking to you scare the shit out of me.

As do:

• The person that looks ever-so-slightly above your head and to the left as they’re talking to you. It freaks me the hell out! Do they see dead people behind me?
• The cold limp handshake giver. That will seriously get you throat-punched.
• The mumbler. Nothing more needs to be said.
• The crowder. I need my space damn it. Respect it.  Just because we’re sharing words doesn’t mean I want you to see, smell and almost taste what you had for lunch.
• The pontificator. The guy who talks to you with his hands behind his back the entire time. Why? It’s not even comfortable…not since you were in the third grade!
• And of course the antithesis of the eye-closing talker…the starer. Every conversation to this person is a staring contest. When you look away just so you can freakin’ blink again you expect this person so scream “I WIN!!”

Finally, the eye-closed talking doctor opened his eyes scaring the ever loving shit out of me because I was leaning so far forward trying to figure him out.

Fumbling around gathering my daughter and my things I thanked him and left in a huge rush, even forgoing the hand sanitizing as I leave ritual.

Walking to the car in the parking lot I got the wife on the phone.

Wife: “So, what’s wrong with her?”

Me: “The doctor closes his eyes when he speaks, honey.”

Wife: “What ?”

Me: “Yeah…I got the doctor who keeps his eyes closed the ENTIRE time he’s talking to you. Do you realize how insanely freaky that is to me? Have you seen this guy?”

Wife: “Wow…really? Seriously? Can you not just tell me what is wrong with our daughter?”

Me: “Oh shit.”

Wife: “What? Where’s Macy? Did you leave her in there?”

Me: “No, I have her right here but I was so busy obsessing about the eye-closed talking doctor that I didn’t hear anything he said.”

I quickly concluded that since I didn’t walk out with any prescriptions it must be a viral infection. Genius…I know.

I also concluded that not only do I hope to never come in contact with freaky eye-closed talking doctor again…but I’m definitely going to be him for this Halloween.



I'm A Little Uncomfortable With This!

I was totally thrown out of my element on Friday. Wifey had booked-up my morning by volunteering me to work both my son’s and my daughter’s Halloween classroom parties. Luckily the schools are across the street from each other…unluckily Mother Nature was on the rag that day and decided to unleash a deluge of water all morning long. It was kind of her way of saying – “here…take this you gap-toothed idiot. Yeah…how would you like to be in charge of all weather all the time and get blamed for deaths, and ruining Timmy’s birthday party, or Suzie’s wedding which will ultimately end up in a divorce cause she got caught with her sister’s husband and goat on his birthday….” That woman seriously needs therapy.

So I get to the boy’s classroom and there’s about 28 seven-year-olds sitting around dressed up as race car drivers, princesses, a lion, White Sox player, a Bears player, and…well, I don’t know what the hell this one kid was, but I’m pretty sure I saw him in a porno once.

I’m all, “Hey – I’m Grayson’s dad. My wife volunteered me to help with the party”

“Hi Grayson’s daddy! Everyone – this is Grayson’s daddy. Say hello!”

It took me a second to realize I should quickly switch into “Grayson’s daddy” mode where everyone talks to everyone else like their 7 years old. So I quickly imagined all my conversations being in 1^st grade teacher lingo…

“Hey sweet wifey…how was your day pretty little girl.”

“Uhh..fine?!”

“Awesome, give me high fives!! Hey, you wanna juice box and a snack?”

“Fuck you…give me a beer and walk away from me.”

“Uh oh…does someone need a tickle? I think so!!! Someone needs their frown turned upside down!!!”

“Touch me and I’ll cut you!”

Now that I was in the mindset – in comes the ringleader…the classroom volunteer head-mother-in-charge. Dressed in a girl-scout outfit, just to prove she was “in the spirit,” she proceeded to gather her tiny gaggle of parents together to begin informing us of our tasks.

Girl Scout Mom delegated tasks like a fucking general. And when she got to me, “and you…you get the game activity. I brought a small pumpkin. Take it – figure it out. Your station’s over there.”

Now, I’ve led a pretty successful career so far and I’ve prided myself on needing little to no supervision or management. I’m a freakin’ strategy creating and implementing machine. But I was literally stumped. If a tree were placed immediately in front of me just then, I would have spent the next hour walking into it repeatedly while pissing myself.

So the little bastards are split up in four groups of approximately 6 kids each. The first group I get is staring at me. I’m killing time by having them explain what characters they’re dressed as while I fake nod like I’m listening (the wifey knows this nod well) but all the while I’m going through my childhood memories trying to remember a cool game we can play with this damn pumpkin.

Then little Franky says, “are well gonna play hot potato with that pumpkin?”

I was so damn relieved I caught myself just as I was about to scream, “fuck yeah we are!” and high five the little bastard through a wall.

So each group of approximately 6 kids came to my station for a total of 12-minutes each. And during that time, one kid looked at me like I was an idiot cause I didn’t know what Star Wars character he was, another kid clearly has no father at home and insisted on sitting in my lap and rubbing my back making me the most uncomfortable I’ve been since the time I watched Michael Jackson with that kid when….well pretty much anytime he was with a kid….., another girl thought it was the funniest thing in the world to stomp my damn foot, and the most memorable little bastard was the one who thought it was hilarious to cough in my face!

When it was over I returned the bruised and beaten small pumpkin to Girl Scout Mom…thanked her for her leadership…slipped my phone number in her purse….and ran into the pouring rain to the daughter’s classroom party so I could do it all over again.

In the end, I did survive…the kids did have fun…and I did get acknowledgement from the wife that at some point in the very distant future, I would be rewarded with sex for my deeds.