Friday, February 2
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We're Closed
My father's patients remind me of gremlins. Not the cute furry star of the movie, but his slimy yellow toothed kin.
There are several times when we must close and lock the office door. One time is if we're eating lunch inside or another is when we close up. As I'm munching on a sandwich or finishing putting away files the gremlins will start clawing at the door. I hear their fingernails scratching the paint right off the surface. Then their fingers slide in through the mail slot. I'm not joking about this stuff. Sometimes I just see a lone hand, but on occassion I'll see a pair of eyes behind the fingers.
"Let us in. Please. We're sick. Let us in!"
They start calling the office at this point when they realize their fingers can't reach the door knob through the mail slot and then it's a game of what else they can say to convince my father to see them.
(insert traffic excuse, city name from which they traveled from or insane pain felt)
Yesterday a lady phoned and said that she's fainted on the floor by the doorstep.
"Joe, let that person in, she fainted."
I opened the door and she looked healthier than I do, and she bounced in like a cheerleader on opening night.
She didn't even bother fake looking groggy once we opened the door.
It's as though the gremlins believe that deception is a figure of speech. She won the second the lock unbolted.
Gremlins.
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