“Daddy,
can we play doctor?”
“Uhmm,
OK.”
“You
have to lie down.”
“Alright,
let’s go to my bed.” I lay down on the
bed by the edge and Matthew stands looking over me. He’s about a foot taller than the height of
the mattress, but occasionally he’ll step on the frame that holds the box
spring, giving him another foot of height.
“OK. What’s wrong?”
“I
dropped something heavy on my toes and they may be broken”
Matthew
moves to the foot of the bed. “You’ll
have to take off your sock.”
I
take my sock off my left foot and wiggle my exposed toes.
“Now
let me see.” He clutches a few toes and jiggles
them like they’re licorice sticks. “I’m
going to have to get something. He runs
out of the room and in less than a minute he comes back with a brass tube from
who knows what.
“What
are you going to do?”
“I
gotta take x-rays.” He places the tube across
the toes on the underside. “Zap.”
Where
did he learn that, I wonder. “Are they
broken?”
“I’m
not sure yet. I have to use my eye-a
scope.” He puts the tube to his right eye
and looks through it as if he’s examining my toes under a microscope.
“Are
they broken?”
“No. They’re sprained.”
“Oh,
thank God. I thought they were broken.”
Matthew
then starts examining my knee.
“What
are you doing now? There’s nothing wrong
with my knee.”
“Oh
yes there is.”
“What?”
“It’s
sprained.”
“That
too?”
“Yes. Now let me check your head.” He puts the tube against my temple.
“What’s
wrong there?”
“It’s
sprained.”
“My
head is sprained?”
“Yes.”
“Well,
with all these sprains, my heart must be going crazy. Can you listen to my heart?”
“OK.”
He puts one end of the tube to the
center of my chest and the other end to his ear.
“Well?”
“I
think you’re dead.”
“What?!”
“No. I hear it.
It’s sprained. It must be your
elbow.” He picks up my left arm and
pressing the tube against the elbow.
“My
elbow? What’s my elbow have to do with
my heart?”
“Wait
right there. I’ll be right back.” He runs out of the room and is back in thirty
seconds.
“What
did you get?”
“I
went to get the Bone-A-Tron?” He makes a
hand gesture to signify some large, invisible machine.
“The
Bone-A-Tron? What does a Bone-A-Tron do?”
“It
takes out the bones from your body.” And
he places what one might conceive as a nozzle to my elbow. He makes a vacuum cleaner sound, “Whoosh.”
“Hey,
what are you doing?”
“Whoosh. Your arm has no bones now.”
I
drop my arm as if it has no functionality.
“Oh no. What did you do?”
He
jumps on the bed and goes to my right foot.
“I got to take your other sock off.”
And he peels it off. “I got to
use the Bone-A-Tron.”
“Why?”
“Because
the bones have to come out. Whoosh. Now your toes have no bones.”
“Oh
no.”
Next
he moves up to my face. “I got to take
your nose off. Whoosh. And now I got to take your chin out. Whoosh.”
“Hey
you’re taking all my bones out!”
Why does this feel like a skit from
a Groucho Marx movie?
