After a long period of silence due to our vast age difference, actually he might've told me "and you better - something and something", the doctor came in, this Dr. Noonan was old and bald and apparently friends with my grandfather. As they caught up, I wondered how many other people my grandpa knew, and if I would know this many people when I was older. I wondered if we ever interacted with people he didn't know. Things would be much quicker if the world (town) was filled with strangers, or even acquaintances.
I looked around the room because I had to, I don't remember what they were talking about - I was in for a check up, and I had just started a habit, a strange habit of clearing my throat a lot. I can't remember how new it was, only because it seemed to have always been there. Did I really never do this before whenever it was? Dr. Noonan checked me out and said I was a healthy, and that clearing my throat was probably due to stress, to which my grandpa asked me what I was stressed about. I shrugged and said school, but I didn't really know what else to say other than that. I pressed the paper cover and bent it in different spots, I searched for the clean smooth spots and bent them.
The conversation was already over and a new one had started. Is it better to be in the waiting room, at the kids table that doesn't fit ANYONE, playing with that toy that's not a toy? The thing has a wooden base and a bunch of different colored wires, with one shape per wire and they went back and forth. It's not a fun thing, and it makes the entire trip much sadder, because it's dark in there too, and when my grandma coughs - she always does two rounds, first round cough coughcoughcough cough... coughacoughacough cough.... a woman with a baby, eating out of a microwave popcorn bg looked at her concerned - even though it was another check up for me, and that's what she did all of the time, and don't stare at my grandma.
Dr. Noonan's story seemed entirely pointless, he told my grandpa about a mean doctor, he had a patient and he took her hand and asked if it hurt, she said no, then he pressed harder and asked Does this hurt?! There was also a detail of a paperclip that he always wore, the mean doctor, and in between these different vignettes, the paper clip was somewhere different on his white coat.
His stories never added up to anything.
I could never tell if my grandpa was too nice to say we had to go, or if it the diagnosis never properly finalized - there was no concluding sentence, it was something small and then we veered off subject, which ended up in me veering off, so I never knew if he actually verbally finished with me or not. Chances are, I'd still be clearing my throat after this visit, and probably for a very long time. But would I ever know how consistent it was, or is, do I do it a lot or is it so common that I do it and don't know it or do I really not do it all the time and only when I'm stressed?
My dog was in the kitchen, he had fungus on his nose and it must've hurt because he didn't want me picking at it. It needed to come off though. It was golden brown and bumpy, and from far away you really couldn't see it. The night before I had pretended to be stuck to the refrigerator, my arms locked into the door handles, just to see if he would do anything. I yelled help a few times and he started barking, then I released myself and hugged him. He must've felt like he helped me, there's no way that he knows I tricked him.
We finished up at the office and the ride home was fine, there was one embarrassing ride home when my grandpa and I got burger king and took it to a park to eat, and it was really hot on my lap, and I told him They don't make them like they used to. And he said Nope.
