Union drummer boy - Matthew Brady photo
"You’re late!" snapped the receptionist at the VA clinic. I was there to keep an appointment with a respiratory therapist. Late? Hell, I'd shown up 30 minutes early from the time scheduled on my appointment card. I showed her the card.
The receptionist sighed, perhaps thinking she was dealing with yet another Vietnam-era vet who'd lost his marbles. "The time is right," she said, "but the day is wrong. Today is Wednesday. Your appointment was yesterday."
Oh. Now it was my turn to sigh, envisioning a two to three week postponement before I could get another appointment.
The receptionist looked at her computer terminal. "Maybe we can still squeeze you in. Have a seat. I'll check with the therapist," she said, and left her desk.
My experiences with the VA have always been positive. Unlike some government agencies intended to serve the public, where the staff would be a lot happier if the public would just go away, VA people make an effort to extend help, especially to vets with CRS. Can't Remember...uh, something. That receptionist could have just rescheduled me and barked "Next!" but didn't. Instead, she tried to patch up my screw up. Not only that, she would have to reshuffle people as well as her schedule.
Some of those people were already in the waiting room. On time and on the right day. This was not my finest hour. I slunk to a chair away from the TV which was tuned to Fox News, which makes me mad, and cracked the book I brought. I always bring a book to goverment appointments and cattle call job interviews. I don't know why. I'm usually too keyed up to read, preferring to people watch if I'm not filling out the inenvitable form.
The waiting room was wall-to-wall vets who may have served during the last ten of America's armed conflicts: Korea, Vietnam, Grenada, Gulf I, Panama, Gulf II, Somalia, Kosovo, Afghanistan and Iraq, and one gray eminence in a wheelchair who could have landed with Patton at Anzio. He was telling lies to some relative whippersnapper in his 70s who'd probably served in Korea.
"There I was, all alone and surrounded by the entire Wermacht, armed with only a mess kit fork and a can of Spam..."
Yeah, well, I bet even he knew what day of the week it was.
A middle-aged woman about five-feet-nothing tall appeared in a doorway and called my name. She turned out to be my respiratory therapist. Name's Dianne.
"You're a day late and dollar short," Dianne said as she escorted me to her torture chamber. She was a fine one to talk about short, but then I was about to get a real comeuppance. She measured my height. "Five feet six inches," she said. More of a comedownance than a comeuppance.
Whaaa? Was she sure about that?
"Yup, five-six. Now step on the scale."
Holy crap! What happened to the other two inches I'd been claiming on DMV forms for years?
"People shrink," Dianne said altogether too pleasantly while making a note of my weight: 120 pounds. About the size of the average seventh grader. I was getting depressed. Five-six. Really?
"Oh, don't worry about it. A lot of famous people are short."
I checked. Turns out I'm the same height as Dustin Hoffman, Al Pacino, Bob Dylan and Lawrence of Arabia. What's more, I'm taller than James Madison, Dudley Moore, Aristotle Onassis and Truman Capote, and I remembered reading that the height challenged explorer, Captain John Smith, whom Pocahantas saved from becoming even shorter, was called "Captain Shrimpe" by the Jamestown colonists.
Next was the respiratory test. Dianne had me breathing into a plastic tube with the results graphed on a computer display. Seems for a ninety-year-old, my lungs are in pretty good shape. Thing is, I'm a few decades shy of 90.
"Are you a smoker?"
I am.
"Stop smoking," she said.
I'll said I'd think about it, but the only thing I thought about was being five-six. I also remembered a girl I'd broken up with because she kept humming the melody to that loathsome Randy Newman song, "Short People."
I needed a cigarette. I mean, if a camel was good enough for Lawrence of Arabia, then a Camel was good enough for me.
Comments?
Hey Mike: A very nice piece about the VA. At least you had some inches to lose. At 5.2, I am one who won't be able to see over the dashboard when I shrink. -- Choxi
Then you can join the legions of senior citizens whose heads are barely visible as they drive their Cadillacs at 35 mph on freeways -- MB
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Another winner, but remember, Mike, nobody likes a quitter. -- Sunne
But nobody quits a liker, either. -- MB
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I guess if I could shut the hell up a lot sooner than I do, a comment of mine might appear at the bottom of one of your brilliant writings. My brother has jumped through the hoops of the VA since Viet Nam, getting help with his knees, his back, and his head full of too many thoughts. He's never complained much. I trust that when it gets right down to it, in many regards the VA does care about those they send to god-knows-where and those who are lucky enough to come back, however damaged they might be. I'd hope that no one has given a vet a cross look or an unkind word too often. Nice stuff again, Mike. And for god's sake, you aren't short - you're a full inch taller than I am. And for cryin' out loud, eat something. -- Zoey
Doncha like being on top? -- MB
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Please consider quitting smoking, so you'll be around to write us lots more Tomato Times in years to come! Because I doubt you're gonna run out of stories to tell! -- Tab
What a nice present. Thank you, Tab. -- MB
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It's frightening how many venues are 'tuned to Fox news'. It was one once when I was at jury duty. I asked that the station be changed to CNN. The clerk gave me a disbelieving look and then said okay. The station was changed. But it's horrifying that Fox is always 'the default station.' They just consent to the brain-washing. - Ldy
Faux News or ESPN seem to be the favored settings on waiting room TVs. But it could be worse. Think of an endless loop of the Barney Song. -- MB
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I ordinarily LIKE Fox News, but that's because I lean Right rather than the Other Way. The only time I don't like Fox News is when they are being danged "fair and balanced" showing people saying things that make me furious, why do I have to listen to such stuff?! You all might be delighted to learn that even Fox News is leaning further Left these days than a lot of Righties would prefer. They are losing some of their Right Thinkers as a result. In the meantime, my cat is trained to jump on the mute button whenever Obama speaks. -- WishLady
If Faux News is annoying the Tea Baggers, then there is a God in heaven, despite what the Right Thinkers and your cat may think. -- MB
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Wonderful one, Mike. My experiences with VA clinics and hospitals has been overwhelmingly positive... the staff is unerringly patient and cheerful, in spite of a way-too-heavy patient load, and the system makes so much sense. (And you WILL quit smoking, won'tcha?) -- Sum
Nag, nag, nag. -- MB
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Great title for a once again brilliant bit of writing. -- Galen
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Lawrence was probably closer to the 5ft4 - 5ft5 range than 5ft6 he tried to pass himself off as. It's one of the reasons he got rejected from the military to begin with in the first part of the war. -- Madi
Oh. Maybe the Turks beat him down when he was imprisoned, no? Anyway, he should have stuck to riding camels instead of the motorcyle that did him in. -- MB
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So wonderful and pitch perfect...loved it! -- Julisari
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I like it when you have time on yout hands. I, too, am an inch shorter than I used to declare, or so the nurse told me. -- Fay
