VIRTUAL DOCTOR’S APPOINTMENTS
Recently, my brother took an unfortunate tumble down a flight of stairs. He’s a big guy, 6’4” and probably 230. The bigger they are, the harder they fall, so it was quite a trip. By the time it was over he was bruised up pretty badly, his glasses were broken and his face covered in blood. Don’t worry, he’s ok now but for a while there it was scary. I’ve probably told him a thousand times to walk down stairs, but he’s the oldest. Does he listen? Of course not.
Anyway, yesterday he sends the family a text getting us caught up on the latest. In this text he told us of a virtual appointment he had just had with his doctor. The minute I hear “virtual doctor’s appointment, I didn’t hear anything else. What a concept. My mind—a carnival fun-house of the bizarre in the best of times—began churning with the possibilities. While everyone else who received the text was asking him follow up questions about his recovery and being appropriately engaged, I found myself typing this:
“Wonder how a virtual appointment with a proctologist would work? ...‘ Nurse, bring me Mr. Dunnevant’s file. It’s in the back room, near the rear of the office. Yeah, I’m thinking that virtual proctologist thing would be difficult...no if’s and’s or butts about it.”
I could actually feel the collective eye roll from all the women in the family, none of whom would even dignify my take with a response. But my big brother gets it. He shot back with:
“I wasn’t particularly impressed with the magazine collection in his virtual office.”
To which I thought, but did not respond: “Yeah, how many times can you read 2017 issues of Rectum Illustrated?”
Once allowed to go down this tricky proctologist road, my mind wandered back to when I was seven years old in our cramped New Orleans apartment watching our grainy RCA black and white television with the tin foil wrapped around the rabbit ears. It was a Sunday morning and I was sitting crossed legged on the floor waiting for my family to leave for church when I turned the set on and was introduced for the first time to one Earnest Angley, faith-healer. Dude was dressed from head to toe in a white suit, complete with white shoes and a white belt. His sweat covered face was staring into the screen, his hands extended towards the camera as he implored his viewers to believe that they could be healed. He was so confident on this point that he explained that the viewer did not even have to be in his live audience to be healed, that his miraculous powers could work through the television set....
“I am asking you to believe and claim your healing, friend. Get up from that sofa and place the part of your body that afflicts you on your television set and I will heal you!!”
With this odd, 55 year old memory brought into my head for reasons that defy understanding, I imagined some guy with hemorrhoids backing up into his television set waiting for his miracle. Then the famous words of the prophet from 4000 years ago came to mind...There is nothing new under the sun. Indeed, virtual doctor’s appointments aren’t new at all. Earnest Angley was doing them years ago.
Now, we return you to the regularly scheduled pandemic and civil unrest.
No comments:
Post a Comment