BACK INACTION

 I went to the doctor with a back pain.  Wait, that sounds like the doctor had a bad back. Hang on...I had a pain in my back so I went to the doctor.  That's better.  Carry on.

Having waited the customary 6 hours in the waiting room (well it IS called the waiting room), I was led into the smaller waiting room, where I spent another 3 hours reading old copies of Good Housekeeping and fiddling with the little instruments in the glass jars.

I had just nodded off and was dreaming that a large trout in a tutu danced into the room, slapped me upside the head with an old sock and called me Dolores, when the doctor sailed majestically into the room, looking immaculate in a starched white uniform, and asked what ailed me.  I would have thought the fact that I was bent over like Quasimodo would have given her a clue, but I decided to humour her.

After explaining that my back was stiff and sore, and ramming the message home by making all kinds of painful sounds, the doctor instructed me to walk around the room so that she could see if I was actually telling the truth or was just pretending so that I could get one of the lollipops that she gave out to children.


I obliged and walked around the office, tripping over a bit of tile that was sticking up on the floor, but countering my blunder with a smooth soft shoe shuffle so that I’m sure she never noticed and her laughter was obviously at a joke she heard the night before about two fellas and a kangaroo going into a bar and ordering a ham sandwich.

Anyway, as soon as I ended my presentation with a flourish that would make Fred Astaire quit dancing and take up plumbing, the following conversation ensued and also happened:

Doc:     The problem is your gait

Me:  Bill Gates? 

Doc:     No!  No!  Not Bill Gates!  Your gait

Me:     Sure I don’t have a gate.  What would I want with a gate?  Now, if I had a field

    I’d need a gate.  To keep the cows in.  Or the sheep.  I like sheep.  Do you like 

    sheep, doctor?

Doc:     Jesus Christ!  Not a gate!  Your gait!  GAIT!  Look at the spelling!

Me:     Oh, right.  I knew that

Doc:     It’s the way you walk

Me:     What is?

Doc:     What’s causing your back pain

Me:     What’s wrong with the way I walk?

Doc:     It’s too upright

Me:     Well, I’m an upright citizen.  I recycle.  And I vote.  I’m as honest as the day

    is long.  Ask me a question.  Go on!  I only tell the truth

Doc:     How old are you?

Me:     23 but I’m tall for my age

Doc:     Right.  So back to your gait…er…your posture

Me:     Oh, so now it’s my posterior?  Are you sure you’re qualified for this line of work?

    Because I have to tell you I’m having some doubts

Doc:     Look, for the love of Christ!  The pain in your back is because 

            you walk in an upright fashion. You’re too erect!

Me:     Sure didn’t our ancestors come down out of the trees and roam the African

    grasslands as homo erectus, and by that very gesture branched off in a different

    direction to our hairier relatives.  And they confused the fuck out of the lions,

    by the way

 

Doc:     OK, that’s it!  Get out!  And don’t come back!

Me:     Can I take this pointy yoke with me?

Doc:     That’s my stethoscope

Me:     Is that what you call  it?  I’ve always wanted one of those.  I’m going to be a

    doctor for Hallowe’en

Doc:     Yes!  Yes!  All right!  Take it!  Just get out!

Me:     Wait!  What about my gait?

Doc:     You’re cured!

Me:     I am?

Doc:     Yes!  It’s a miracle!  God is great!

Me:     But I’m an atheist!

Doc:     The lord works in mysterious ways

Me:     Oh.  Right then.  Well, how much do I owe you?

Doc:     It’s free.  Actually, I’m giving YOU $20.  It’s the new law



And with that I got shoved out the door and onto the street.  The door was slammed in a manner that I can only describe as hostile.  ‘Well, how do you like that?’, I thought.  ‘I’m cured!’  And I skipped off up the street only to realize, when I put my back out, that I wasn’t cured at all and I had to be helped home with the aid of an old lady who let me borrow her walker when I told her I’d beat her up if she didn’t.







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