Of Toilet Paper and Seasoned Rice

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I got up and out today, heading downtown to see my doc, Doctor A.

I struggled through the subway system with its hundreds of people rushing and bustling like angry ants. I move quickly through them, panting and wheezing. I can't catch my breath with the simplest of travel. I'm winded when I get to Dr. A's building and head upstairs. Once there, I go through his checkup, blood pressure stuff. He checks me out good and I tell him about my difficulty breathing and getting tired easily.

He listens to my chest with a stetho- scope and finds something funny in my lungs. He sits down and writes me out a prescrip- tion and hands it to me to go down the block to a clinic that will take walk-ins at the door and give me a chest X-ray. I wonder about this. Are things that serious? "You need to get it done today, Hobobob," he says.

Now Dr. A is not one to give me a command, but when he does I know that I shouldn't fuck around, so off I go to the clinic and of course I go to the front desk and there is this Black receptionist on the phone and the computer, and she is busy. Now I know I look rugged. My head in a hot, sweat stained cap, my jaw covered with a five o'clock shadow and my clothing frumpy, but still, this bitch...I mean this receptionist leaves me standing there while she is on the phone for five to ten minutes. Suddenly one of the girls in a desk off to the side feels sympathy for my waiting, calls me over and asks for my identification, prescription, and insurance card, and then asks for me to take a seat in the waiting room.

I do so and wait until my name is called. I get the fuck up and go to the Nice girl while the Black one is still on the phone. Now I don't have a problem with Black people, BECAUSE HEY, I'M BLACK, but still I just feel discriminated against by them just because of the color of my skin. Hey, you laugh but it's true. If you don't look the part of the successful Black person, they tend to look down on you as a poor example to the race. Look, I'm not an example of anything to anyone. Get over it. The best example that I can think of being is one of a fucking clown. I'm not shitting on myself, it's the fucking truth.

I don't want your sympathy, I just want a fucking chest X-ray. The efficient receptionist hands my cards back and ask me to take another seat until my name is called. That's when I think about it. Don't they have you take off your clothes for x-rays? Once again, I'm caught flat footed because I go around commando. This is going to be fucking funny. I used to get embarrassed to show my little dick to women, but as I've done so by mistake more than once, I really don't care any more. It's a tool that I seldom get a chance to use anyway. Why not show it off? Heh, it's good for little else.

A dude calls my name and leads me through a maze to a closet and tells me to strip from the waist up. I smile. That is fucking good. I put on a smock, or whatever you call those medical shirts that always tie from the back and strut out into the hallways with the guy to the x-ray room. Inside there is this huge, mechanical bull which I had to stand against for some time. Move here, move there, raise your arms, press your chest against the plate. Blah, blah, blah. One command after the other until he tells me that I am done. Thanks dude. I get dressed and split. I make haste getting the fuck out of there. You'd think I'd stole something big, like the x-ray machine. I don't waste the time being cordial.

I am in the subway, riding home, thinking to myself, what the fuck is wrong with my lungs?

I wish I knew. I wish I knew.

Hobobob