I feel good most days and I’m of the mindset that what you don’t know may not hurt you...but, I went to the doctor begrudgingly the other day because I felt like I ought to...not to mention that it was close to a bar I wanted to go to and shoot some pool and check in with some old friends...so I thought I’d stop in, at the doctor’s that is...and after a quick checkup he said I should exercise and I told him I have been...hell, my whole life has been has been one long exercise in futility...if anything can go wrong, it does...if 99 times out of a hundred something good happens, I’m the unlucky bastard who gets the one time it doesn’t...I stole...er, borrowed one of those Fitbits that tracks your steps...I figured since I always seem to be running in circles, I must be able to wear one of those damn things out...yesterday, it said that I took 10,001 steps...yet day after day I never get any closer to where I want to go...just going in circles man...the doctor nodded his head knowingly...he’s seen me and my kind before and often...I like my doctor though even though he’s gruff and usually full of bad news and warnings when I see him...he’s an old school doctor who I’m not sure actually went to any old schools but seems to know what he’s doing...his office is in some hole in the wall between two abandoned buildings and when you go in, the place smells like cigar smoke and there he is chomping on some cheap stogie...it’s tough to make an appointment with him...not because he’s busy, but because his receptionist quit some time ago and he’s never gotten around to hiring another...so he answers the phone when he can...almost all of his patients are long time neighborhood people who just drop in anyway, appointment or not...nobody new in their right mind would ever consider going there...my old man went to him for years and the doc would always tell him he’d better quit smoking...in between his own coughs…he looks at me and says ”I’d tell you to stop drinking but I’d be wasting my goddamn time, you wouldn’t listen any more than your old man did about smoking.” I laugh and say “You’re right”...he says “Too bad about your father, I heard he passed on a couple of months ago.”...I said yeah, that he had a heart attack playing golf and died on the 17th hole after making a birdie…very similar to how Bing Crosby died...”Well hell, there’s worse ways to go out” he roared...so we sat around and shot the bull for a while...he said he was thinking about retiring but he didn’t fish or play golf…”I don’t know what the hell I would do” he said in his raspy voice...I said he could come drinking with me and chase women, but he said he was too old for that kind of shit...another person came into the office and it was time to go so I wished him well and said I’d be back next year...he said “Ok, I hope to god I’m still here...good to see you, and by the way...quit drinking!”
