looked like we were on vacation, or still children! In fact, everything was done to alleviate fear except sparing people painful, invasive surgery. We even had classical music piped into the waiting room so the old trouts could listen to the “Trout Quintet.”
Today it was “Heiliger Dankgesang” though, the piece Beethoven wrote in response to a terrifying illness of his own (one of my choices), but the irony was lost on this crowd. Even if they’d wanted to, nobody could’ve heard the violins over the incredible din being produced by one family—various children, parents and a grandma. The main source of boisterousness was a little girl of about two and a half, who was racing around the room talking to herself. One of her arms was in a cast, but it didn’t stop her being feverishly active. The adults seemed united in trying to ignore her—but why didn’t one of them take this itchy kid out to a playground or something? They couldn’t all need cosmetic surgery.
The child was in a world of her own and her restlessness was troubling. It was maniacal . I watched as she approached the decorative column in the middle of the waiting room that our designer had persuaded us looked “Grecian” (though it seemed straight out of Star Trek —when they beam themselves onto some planet that looks beatific but proves to be an illusion, really just hot rocks and craters). The kid was no aesthete: she embraced this stupid plaster pillar passionately and started humping, grinding her hips against it in mock-ecstasy. She was doing a very professional-looking pole dance in our waiting room! She knew all the moves. Somehow, I didn’t think this was the kind of “fun” Andy had in mind.
The child kept looking behind her for approval—not from everybody, just her dad —she was looking his way the whole time she pumped and twirled. I caught the guy’s eye and could see it all immediately: he had made this tiny kid watch porn and act it out for him at home. He was the one who’d taught her this stuff. He looked guilty as hell, pretending not to notice what she was up to. You could tell this wasn’t his customary stance, since the kid seemed so surprised by his indifference to her porno efforts. She was obviously used to getting more of a rise out of him than this. And what was with the broken arm? Had he done that to her too perhaps, when she refused to play the game?
The next time I caught his eye, he’d governed his shame and stared back at me with defiance. I retreated to my office, shaking. I tried to calm myself by thinking of Bubbles. What was she doing right now? Probably sleeping on the window seat in the sun, dreaming of the bad old days with Styrofoam Santa, incarcerated in her bike igloo. I had tried to make up for all that by keeping her warm and well fed ever since, giving her a life of coziness and Fancy Feast (a life I kind of envied right now).
My reverie was interrupted by Cheryl bringing in my next patient, the pole-dancer’s mother , who sat down and didn’t say anything. This happens a lot. Patients seem to expect me to point out to them what their particular eyesore is: they’ve worried about it so much that, by the time they come see someone, they think it’s obvious (even if it’s penile dysfunction!).
“Well, what can I do for you today?” I prodded.
She shrugged.
“Is there something specific you came to see me about?”
“Well, look at them!”
“Um, at. . . what?” I asked.
She indicated her breasts. I waited. It really wasn’t my job to preemptively decide what the patient’s particular area of self-doubt was. Finally, she gathered herself and said, “They’re too big. My husband said so.” (Of course they’re too big for him , lady—the guy likes little girls!)
I dutifully did some measurements of her small, symmetrical breasts, as if studying the problem from a medical point of view, then announced authoritatively, “Your breasts are not too large. They’re perfectly
Today it was “Heiliger Dankgesang” though, the piece Beethoven wrote in response to a terrifying illness of his own (one of my choices), but the irony was lost on this crowd. Even if they’d wanted to, nobody could’ve heard the violins over the incredible din being produced by one family—various children, parents and a grandma. The main source of boisterousness was a little girl of about two and a half, who was racing around the room talking to herself. One of her arms was in a cast, but it didn’t stop her being feverishly active. The adults seemed united in trying to ignore her—but why didn’t one of them take this itchy kid out to a playground or something? They couldn’t all need cosmetic surgery.
The child was in a world of her own and her restlessness was troubling. It was maniacal . I watched as she approached the decorative column in the middle of the waiting room that our designer had persuaded us looked “Grecian” (though it seemed straight out of Star Trek —when they beam themselves onto some planet that looks beatific but proves to be an illusion, really just hot rocks and craters). The kid was no aesthete: she embraced this stupid plaster pillar passionately and started humping, grinding her hips against it in mock-ecstasy. She was doing a very professional-looking pole dance in our waiting room! She knew all the moves. Somehow, I didn’t think this was the kind of “fun” Andy had in mind.
The child kept looking behind her for approval—not from everybody, just her dad —she was looking his way the whole time she pumped and twirled. I caught the guy’s eye and could see it all immediately: he had made this tiny kid watch porn and act it out for him at home. He was the one who’d taught her this stuff. He looked guilty as hell, pretending not to notice what she was up to. You could tell this wasn’t his customary stance, since the kid seemed so surprised by his indifference to her porno efforts. She was obviously used to getting more of a rise out of him than this. And what was with the broken arm? Had he done that to her too perhaps, when she refused to play the game?
The next time I caught his eye, he’d governed his shame and stared back at me with defiance. I retreated to my office, shaking. I tried to calm myself by thinking of Bubbles. What was she doing right now? Probably sleeping on the window seat in the sun, dreaming of the bad old days with Styrofoam Santa, incarcerated in her bike igloo. I had tried to make up for all that by keeping her warm and well fed ever since, giving her a life of coziness and Fancy Feast (a life I kind of envied right now).
My reverie was interrupted by Cheryl bringing in my next patient, the pole-dancer’s mother , who sat down and didn’t say anything. This happens a lot. Patients seem to expect me to point out to them what their particular eyesore is: they’ve worried about it so much that, by the time they come see someone, they think it’s obvious (even if it’s penile dysfunction!).
“Well, what can I do for you today?” I prodded.
She shrugged.
“Is there something specific you came to see me about?”
“Well, look at them!”
“Um, at. . . what?” I asked.
She indicated her breasts. I waited. It really wasn’t my job to preemptively decide what the patient’s particular area of self-doubt was. Finally, she gathered herself and said, “They’re too big. My husband said so.” (Of course they’re too big for him , lady—the guy likes little girls!)
I dutifully did some measurements of her small, symmetrical breasts, as if studying the problem from a medical point of view, then announced authoritatively, “Your breasts are not too large. They’re perfectly
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