I went to go visit my mother in law in the hospital. After navigating the horror that is Flatbush Avenue on a Saturday afternoon I was also cursed by the parking gods with a spot so far from the hospital I could have left the damn car home. The good part is that the walk was downhill all the way. OK don’t get ahead of me, I forgot I would be walking back the exact same way I came only this time it would be uphill. More on that later. It was a sweltering 142 degrees outside and as soon as I stepped out of my air conditioned car my glasses fogged up. I managed to get the glasses de-fogged and started my trek to the hospital. A group of Hassidim’s passed me dressed in long black coats and furry hats and I thought, what kind of God would want them to dress like that and sweat like a pig….ok maybe a bad animal to use as an analogy, but you get the idea. And then as I turned the corner there were four Muslim woman coming toward me dressed literally head to toe in some gauzy glittery print fabric with only a slit allowing their eyes to show….and I thought, what kind of God would want them to dress like that and sweat like a pig…..same idea! Just as I was entering the hospital the automatic doors opened and out walked three nuns in long grey woolen habits tied at the waist with rope and a hood that covered their hair and forehead and I thought to myself what kind of God…..well, you get the picture! So for today, I gave up on trying to figure out God and his couture choices.
The lady behind the patient information counter had to be as old as God. Maybe older. She had glasses thick as the proverbial coke bottles and wore a perfume that I am sure they stopped making in 1928 because it was killing people. “I need a pass for Room 7099.” From that moment on I realized why there is a God. He was to keep me from impaling myself with the sign-in pencil as I impatiently waited for her to give me the pass. She checked the room, she checked the name, she checked my signature, she checked her watch and her calendar….now security is one thing, but if I had in fact come to harm to anyone in the hospital I would have long given up, killed this old broad and just taken the pass or simply not gotten a pass at all…duh! But for now, with God watching I waited until she wrote the room number on my pass and handed it to me with a smile. And after all that the guard at the elevator hardly even looked at the pass. He was too busy chatting it up with Nurse Malibu Barbie.
As I navigated the hallways to find her room it dawned on me that not one of doctor’s names on the little tags outside each room was American. Some names had so many letters that they ran out of room on the tag and wrote right on the wall. No Dr. Kildare, Dr. Casey…hell not even a Dr House in the house. Finally a Dr. King….not the Reverend obviously, but an American name. Wrong! Out of a room came Dr. RamashatiKING…hence Dr. King. Where the hell are all the American doctors? Ya know, the ones born in Michigan, Connecticut, even Jersey??? Where did all the little Jewish boys go? They can’t all be the Messiah? Besides wasn’t it every little Jewish boys lot in life to be a doctor, dentist or lawyer? My doctor is a Jew, my dentist is a Jew and so is his twin brother, so I want my doctor to be a Jew as well. I want a Schwartz or Finkelstein, I’d settle for a Seuss, a Spock or even a Livingston (I presume…) I’d even like a consult with Dr. Ruth, Dr. Kissinger even Dr. Dre!
I found my mother-in-laws room, spent an hour and a half with her thereby securing my place in the will and left for home. By the time I got out of the elevator, passed the casanova security guard, and handed in my pass I was sweating to death. It was then that I remembered how far I had parked, and then almost as an afterthought realized that it would be uphill the whole way. (I know you figured that out before) I lumbered to my car, sucking wind and dripping with sweat and as I passed perspiring nuns, sweaty Hassidims and fermenting Muslims…..I didn’t give it a thought.
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