Minnie the Marlboro Gal

[Mike Handley]

Halfway into an hour-long wait at the doctor’s office with my mother today, I grew weary of staring at the bloody catheter bag taped to the thigh of the guy sitting across from us and slipped outside for a smoke. Soon after I began pacing, the car in the slot next to the handicapped spot pulled away, and the empty space beckoned, whispering how much easier it would be for me to load the wheelchair with all that room.

As I reached into my pocket for keys and spun on my heels, the office door swung open and out strolled a ponytailed woman the size of a blue Mini Cooper. I fell in behind her on the sidewalk, and when I used the remote to pop the locks on my truck, she turned and said, “I guess we had the same idea.

“I was just hoping to get closer to make it easier for my big fat pregnant ass to load HIM,” she said, meaning her equally imposing and wheelchair-bound, diabetic husband Kenneth, who had his first of two stents in 1998 and two heart valves replaced in 2008. Moments later, she navigated her little Hyundai into the vacant spot, climbed out and tapped a pack of Marlboro Lights on her hand before extracting one and lighting it, which was my cue to go back inside and enjoy hearing how another man’s wife was bitten on the wrist by a snake.

[Peter McNiff]

It's the incidentals that make good stories great and there are plenty packed into this one. Nice piece, Mike.

[Teresa]

I worked in medicine for so long that nothing (but poo and stench) yuck me out, not horribly anyway. I wouldn't lick a catheter bag, but it wouldn't bother me to look at it. I'm just sad you didn't get your shot at loading the wheelchair! Oh well....Such a gentleman.

[Angela]

Sounds like one of those crazy nightmares that is almost funny in the retelling, but remains a bit disturbing underneath. I have a disabled friend who wears a catheter and I must help him transfer the drainage bag when I aid him in getting out of his wheelchair and into my car. We call it "Mr. Peabody" and and it lives in a blue tote bag with a velcro closure. We laugh, but it still gives me the yuks.

[Jeanette Cheezum]

Unfortunately, this is the reality of life. I've had to spend alot of time in doctors offices with my mother-in-law thelast few years. It never gets easier. One of the sixes I wrote for 6S was published "Lydia" about the aged. You did a good job on this.

[Sissy Anderson]

Mike, this left an uncomfortable taste in my mouth,(maybe because I'm a former smoker. I despise sitting in doctors waiting area's, you painted the general essence for why. Nicely done, but I prefer your mouth watering descriptions of FOOD!

[Bob Clay]

One of the reasons why I rarely go to the Doctor's, (the last time I went they cut half by bloody back off de-melanomaising me). You see your own future sitting in front of you in various states of decay.
If I'm gonna decay, I'm gonna do it in the pub.

[Sandra Davies]

Gruesomely amusing (shudder)