The Strange Tale of Dr. McBreatheavy and the Kryptonite Sweater

We are getting closer now, cats and kittens. Soon this Alice will venture through the looking glass or this Dorothy will journey over the rainbow or this Wendy will take the first star on the left and straight on until morning. You know I tired to make me a man in my comparisons, I really did. Why is it that us graced with the penis never get to venture out of our own reality into probably realities, alternate universes and fantasies of our own eclectic design? Now, before anybody out there reading this (all three of you…thanks mom!) tosses the Charlie + Chocolate Factory = Another World equation into my comments section let me veto this theorem by factoring other variables unearthed by Babbage in 1852:


Now some may state me likening Japan to the worlds of Wonderland, Oz and Neverland colors me a hypocrite. But Nighthawk, they cry foul, is Japan not Earth based? Some “mapmakers”, “geography textbooks” and “any Japanese six year old” might try to erroneously lead you to believe that yes, in fact, Japan is an East Asian island in the Pacific Ocean but I implore you to analyze evidence far more concrete then the above illusions of grandeur. Surly, ladies and gentleman of the jury, there is nary a place on my Earth, your Earth and your children’s Earth such as this:


The defense rests.

In these final stages of preparations before departing to the land where the walrus and the octopus fornicate freely in the groves of cardboard trees I decided take an additional medical step and have a pre-trip physical. I mean, hey, I had such fortune in my last medical endeavor and maybe the fates would be with me again this day and the doctor would be some ravishing beauty. Perchance this small town in my absence these many years has populated the medical field with glamorous women, a bevy of nymphs with stethoscopes, tongue depressors and anal thermometers. Alas, this will have to remain in the testosterone laced fantasies of the straight male and Melissa Etheridge. There was to be no Goddess in Green on this day. No, today I would find myself in the presence of the speedy Dr. McBreatheavy. But first: magazines and reservations.

Why are waiting room magazines so out of date? I have discovered more recent publications while shifting through thrift store racks. It is one thing to have scheduled your appointment for 11:30, arrive at 11:30 to have to wait behind the gentleman who walked through the door before you did but it is another to have to pilfer through copies of People dating back to the 60s. When the premiere article of your waiting room periodical of choice reads WILL LUCY LEAVE DESI? it is time to just let go and get on with your magazine stocking life. And what is up with having to wait behind the guy who walked in the door one moment before me, anyway? I called weeks before. I placed a reservation. Does that not levy me some form of priority? I mean, what is the point of having reservations if the guy who parked one spot closer gets to meet with the abrupt and angst filled desk secretary first and is placed above you. Us reservation making kind have been getting shafted for far too long. I say we all band together and try to bring down the establishment. Hold and honor our reservations abrupt and angst filled desk secretaries of the world or we will riot and the first thing we attack are your noon time donut and cigarette breaks! Oh yeah, we are not bullshitting. When the Coalition of Reservation Enthusiasts (C.O.R.E.) strike we strike for the jugular! If you oblige we here at C.O.R.E. will entertain an open discussion on magazine selection.

So, despite the reservation, I wait. I sit back in a chair with maybe two decades worth of gum stuck to the bottom of it and listen to the adult contemporary soundtrack playing from the speaker in the corner. It’d be interesting if one of these places decided to pump, say, Anthrax or the Sex Pistols in there one cheery morn. Across from me is a woman who resembles Lisa Loeb and next to hear some teen in pants two of him or one Roseanne could fit into watches something on his portable DVD player. I couldn’t quite make out what it was but having a firm finger on the pulse of modern youth culture I can safely assume it was old Facts of Life reruns. I predicted the Tootie comeback in 1994 and to all those who laughed, pants me and stuffed me in the girl's bathroom garbage I happily extend my tongue in your general direction and offer a booming “I told ya’ so!”

Suddenly something strange happened. A man carrying a sack walked through the front door, towards the desk, shared a few words with the abrupt and angst filled desk secretary and made his way straight into the back of the clinic. This had to be some medical emergency to allot for such prompt access to where I had, at that point, been waiting 25 minutes to get to. Surely these were kidneys or livers or maybe saline implants. Something of immediate importance, right? Ahh, the smell that soon wafted into the waiting room and the exodus of two prior patients who had been called to the back, now returning to the waiting area told me otherwise. It appears that the good doctor was now on lunch break and from the smell of it he fancied hamburgers and gravy-drenched fries. I guess when you look after other people’s health for a living maintaining your own is actually quite dull. Another twenty minutes would pass while the doctor chowed down but eventually I would be called into the back room that now had the pleasant aroma of an Arkansas diner after midnight.

Of course, as we all know, we move out of the large waiting room with the outdated magazines and Barbara Streisand soundtrack to the smaller waiting room with photos of the uterus on the wall and fresh cups of urine on a table in the corner. What to do in these periods of bland nothingness besides memorize the parts of the uterus and wonder which fallopian tube you like best. There were seventeen tongue depressors remaining. The Norman Rockwell calendar still read 2006. A nurse went to the washroom twice. Maybe I’ll start up a punk rock band. Should I grow a moustache? Just what does a fallopian tube do anyway? And before you can answer in thumps heavyset Dr. McBreatheavy polluting the air with the stench of onion and beef gravy, glasses on the bridge of his nose, hair uncombed and shirt slightly untucked at the back. A small wave of depression washes over you as you realize that this is what you have been waiting for.

I attempt to exchange pleasantries but McBreatheavy will have no such politeness. There is work to be done, patients to be shuffled, and we cannot disturb his swift dispatching routine. He breathes in and breathes out with such force one could believe he could power large windmills. I was 6 feet away from him and my hair was pushed back. He muttered something that sounded like “Why are you here today?”, gravy still staining his teeth, and I explained that I was moving to Japan for a year and wanted to ensure all was tip top before departing. He asked me to sit up on the hard, black elevated bed with the crinkly paper. He asked me the breathe in. He used tongue depressor number 17 to check my throat for all of 1 second. He flashed that pointed jabby ear thing in the right and the left for all of 2 seconds. He did the same for both eyes. Placed the stethoscope on my chest for all of 3 seconds and said I was fine.

I was flabbergasted. I waited over 50 minutes for an exam that didn’t even clock in at 50 seconds? I didn’t get the knee knocking thing or even the arm pump blood pressure taking device. This examine was quicker then a McDonald’s drive-through. I’ve blinked longer! Now, I admit, I am generally not the doctor seeing type. I have not had a proper check up in a few years but surely the medical profession hasn’t advanced so far forward that examines are dolled out more rapidly then a photocopy. I tried in vain to extend my stay by mentioning some marginal chest pains to Dr. McBreatheavy. He rolled his eyes and asked me how long these pains would last. I said that they would last about 5 seconds or so. His diagnosis: “Ignore them. This is nothing to worry about”. And that, as they say, was that. Examinations in 50 seconds or less or your next one’s free.

I wondered later if he was participating in some sort of contest with other doctors in town on who could clear the most patients in a day. Furthermore, I thought, how could he have properly deduced my health in such a short span of time? I am no doctor, true, but I have seen ER and Clooney would’ve at least given me five minutes. Maybe Dr. McBreatheavy has super powers. By night does he fight crime under the name Doctor Flabtastic? Was he simply using his X-ray vision to see into me and, thus, easily able to offer a justified stance on my medical well being? Questions like these need answers and thus I have opted, should I ever wish to meet Dr. McBreatheavy once more, to sport a kryptonite sweater. Let’s see if that speedy bastard beats the clock this time!