The Psychiatrist

The Psychiatrist

Lately Trixie has been driving me nuts with all of her shenanigans.  So much so that I had to see a psychiatrist for help.  I’ll tell ya it was either that or ride off into the sunset.  We live near Knoxville, Tennessee in the Smoky Mountains.  It was in Knoxville that this story occurred. 

I was way too focused to notice the beads of sweat dripping from the brim of my University of Iowa Hawkeye cap.  Sitting in the office parking lot of my psychiatrist with the top down in my Miata MX-5, I was on a mission.  Last night I bought a Bose, Mie2i Mobile Headset and was bound and determined to use it while I waited for my appointment with the shrink forty minutes hence.

Sweat ran down my spine soaking my new red golf polo shirt.  My glasses turned to 3-D vision as they were covered with moisture.  Bob Marley was singing “Songs of Freedom” through my SmartPhone over the Pandora station.  It sounded great coming through my stereo, but I wanted more- and I wanted it now!  Those headphones were to be my answer.  Stereo with reggae music in my ears would make my shrink session the best ever!

Like a boy of eight or nine ripping open his first Christmas present of the year, I tore into the molded plastic with my arthritic fingers, but nothing happened!  I used my car keys to see if by chance I could create a crack in the barrier.  That didn’t work.  I put the edge into the glove compartment and slammed it shut to see it would crack.  That didn’t work!  I was upset I clipped my fingernails the night before and they were of no use now.  Finally, in desperation, I bit down with the caps on my teeth into the plastic.  The son-of-a-bitch would not budge!  I was soaking wet and felt something warm on my mustache and chin.  With my glasses now on the seat next to me, I tilted the rear view mirror and saw it.  Blood!  It was running like a faucet out of the corner of my lower lip. 

‘Shit!’  I thought.  It was the Plavix blood thinner I started last week.  I tried pressing my hand against the unchecked flow.  That didn’t work.  I used my forearm near the wrist for greater leverage.  All that did was to create a reddish smudge on my chin and arm.  ‘Screw it!’  I thought.  ‘I’m getting this thing open one way or another.  Scissors– that’s the answer.’  I said aloud.

Maria, Dr. Kitty’s receptionist, had that deer-in-headlights look when I entered the lobby.  The blood had formed a neat triangle between my neck, and my chin, and my ‘stache.  My ‘stache was only half gray at that point, as the other side had a pinkish hue now from the blood.  My shirt was soaked in the front and back.  My Hawkeye cap had a wet ring at the base.  I was hyperventilating from fighting the damn plastic mold, and my temper.

It was no wonder she was hesitant to meet my request of demanding a pair of scissors.  After all, I was a psychiatric patient.  She probably thought the psychotropic drugs were not working.  When I told her why I needed them, she nodded in understanding and nearly hurt herself cutting into the four-ply plastic container.  And it was with great pride that she handed me the contents wrapped again inside a plastic bag.  That, I knew I could open.  I told her I would be in my car and left the lobby.

‘Oh, yea!’  I said five minutes later listening to Bob singing “One Love”.  First my right ear, then the other, and at times, both resonated with such a great beat.  The product offered all that was advertised.  Cool!

Before my appointment with Dr. Kitty, I figured I had better clean up a bit, and went to the restroom.  After using some two dozen-paper towels to dry my baldhead, wipe blood from numerous body parts, and be generally be “presentable”, I returned to the lobby to read the instruction book.

Just as I was announced, I read the part about there being three different sized earpieces.  ‘Oh, shit!’  I thought as I walked to the treatment room.  I fumbled in my pockets and looked for the plastic bag.  It was gone.  And there were no earpieces to be found!

“Shit!”  I said aloud as the doc asked me what was wrong.  “Oh, nothing.  I think I lost something.”

“Well, that gives us something to talk about today.  Let’s discuss your inability to focus.  This will be a nice session,” she said.

Focus, my ass!  All I could focus on was where the missing earpieces went.  ‘This thing cost $150 and now it won’t work,’ I thought to myself as she talked about the importance of putting all my energy into only one thing at a time.

The session ended with me focused on finding the missing pieces.  Instead of leaving, I retrieved the day’s edition of the Knoxville Sentinel Newspaper and went back to the john.  Maria must have thought I ‘had to go’ and needed some reading material while on the throne.

My motive was different.  Constipation comes with being pissed- off and I was on a pissed-off mission.  After all, wasn’t that what I just learned from Dr. Kitty?  Being in healthcare I know what is meant by “universal precautions”.  You treat every open would as if it is contagious with the worst imaginable virus.  You do the same for ANY bodily fluids.  I did not care much for getting AIDS from some fluids that might have been in the ten-gallon wastebasket in the Men’s Room.

I laid out the newspaper on the floor covering some ten square feet.  Using clean paper towels I lifted the metal can and dumped everything on the newspapers.  The can slipped out of my hand and made quite a racket as it slammed on to the tile floor.  There was quick knock at the door as Maria asked, “David, are you okay in there?”

I startled her when I opened the door, she did not hear me as she was too busy looking past me at the garbage spread all over the men’s room.  She left and I continued to focus.

I checked every single piece of discarded trash and there were no friggin’ earpieces to be found.  I became more constipated!  I didn’t notice the two guards by the water fountain when I opened the door to leave.  I was still focused on my mission.

I did feel a slight pin prick in my arm as Dr. Kitty injected me with a needle.  I really did not mind it, as I love anesthesia, and enjoyed the fall into the guards’ outstretched hands.  When I woke three hours later at the psych hospital I was told I had been admitted for abnormal behavior!

Bullshit!  I was on a focused mission- just like the doc taught me.  After a night’s stay and great drug-induced sleep, I was free to go.  At the desk, a sweet young gal emptied the contents of my pockets from a large yellow envelope.  Out fell my Miata keys, my billfold, three dollars, a set of headphones, and the ear pieces.

“Son of a Bitch!”  I yelled.

“You don’t have to be vulgar,” The little gal said.  “Have you found Jesus?”

“I didn’t know he was missing,” I responded walking out the door, looking at my newfound treasure.  The first thing I did was tune to reggae, popped the earphones in, and read my billing slip before driving off.

The billing code reported “anxiety-induced constipation from compulsive spending.”  Worked for me!