Sticky Turds?  Them’s Fightin’ Words!

Dr. Paragraph complained that no one got regular diseases anymore – especially not the walls or floors.  He treated too many claptrap purse-huggers and although he double-billed (an acceptable practice, he internally defended) the money did not compensate adequately for the crushing boredom and deepening sense that he was wasting not only his life but squandering the expensive and difficult education for which his parents had literally sacrificed their lives as medical-school cadavers.

For reasons of which he was not consciously aware, he had replaced all of the certificates and diplomas on his office walls with panels cut away from cereal boxes and potato-chip bags.  He went so far as to replace his gold-stamped state license with a photograph from a pornographic magazine printed in Russia.  Patient after patient submitted themselves to exam under a lurid and possibly illegal image of a man skull-fucking a dead Siberian husky.  When Dr. Paragraph realized no one would ever notice, he folded his license into a paper dart which, with a flick of the wrist,  he sailed out the window of his office .  The certificate flew along a curly pubic-hair path to the street far below.

After this, a numbness worked through him like an icy cancer.  And, as is the case with most cancers, the damage was done by the time he was aware of it.

In addition to his customary overcharges, Dr. Paragraph began ordering additional tests for which he already knew the results.  If, for example, the stethoscope or patient history revealed that a man had, say, two hearts, he would additionally request an ultrasound or a magnetic scan.  Usually he would not even bother to review these bogus tests.

This escalated to new level when a referral patient, a man from the suburbs,  presented with headaches and blurred vision.  It was immediately obvious to Dr. Paragraph that the man’s hat was simply too tight and he wondered how the referring physician has missed this.  For a moment he considered loaning the man a larger, looser hat until he could purchase one that fit properly. Instead of this rational and reasonable course of action, Dr. Paragraph feigned deep concern and performed exploratory sugery right there and then using nothing but his bare hands.

During the procedure, the doctor’s attention wandered and he accidentally tunneled through to the other side of the man’s head, and emereged into silky  daylight.  Paragraph stuffed a can of beer in the wound and called it a day.

Enough of that, he figured.