The Moth

When I went to the doctor the other day, the assistant asked me a bunch of questions while I was waiting for the big guy to make his entrance.  “Over the past seven days, did you feel unhappy – never, a little, sometimes, most of the time, all of the time?”

Last week, we evicted two people from the park in Northern New York.  One is a woman who stopped paying when the eviction moratorium went into effect.  The other is Tin Hat Guy and his wife.  I understand that both had to go, but I am not happy that at least one will be homeless.  I answered,

-Sometimes.

-Did you feel overwhelmed – never, a little, sometimes, most of the time, or all of the time?

The maintenance guy at my other park was fired at the end of March.  When I eighty-sixed him, I gave him thirty days to move, $500 up front, and the promise of $500 if he was gone by the first of May.  He is still there.  He has stolen a riding lawn mower, poked a hole in the pole barn, trashed the skid steer, and thrown building materials and trash over the lot.  The sheriff tells me that we can not treat him as a trespasser even though he is not, technically, a tenant.  There is an eviction process available in cases like this, but it is not self-executing.  I told the nurse,

-I own mobile home parks.  It would be strange if I did not feel overwhelmed at times.

-We have to ask these questions.

-Do I have to answer them?

-Yes.

-A little.

-Did you feel like you were a failure at any time during the week?  A little, some of the time, most of the time, or all of the time?

This time, I laughed out loud.

-Can you write, ‘Sometimes, but only as a reasonable response to an unreasonable situation’?

-Sorry?

-Sometimes.

-Doctor Gnagnarelli will be in shortly.

-Thank you. 

I had made the appointment because my shoulder hurt.  Certain movements that involved pushing and crossing my body, like throwing a straight right-handed punch, or touching my left scapula with my right hand, hurt, while certain other motions, like standing on my hands, did not.  The pain had started six weeks ago.  I made the appointment as soon as my wife’s nagging that she was sick of hearing how much it hurt became unbearable.

When the doctor came in, he examined my shoulder and found that I had arthritis.  He stuck a needle in it, injected some steroids and gave me a prescription for NSAIDs.  Before he gave me the shot, he told me that it would be quite painful.  I left feeling like a success, because I had not whimpered while he inserted a sharp piece of metal into the gap where my acromion butts up against my clavicle.  Any other feelings of unhappiness, depression, fatigue, failure or success were no more affected by the foregoing events than they had precipitated them.

A friend of mine who is a podiatrist says that a moth once came into his office, sat down (or whatever moths do) and began to unburden himself.  “Doc”, he said, “I feel like I am freezing in my mother’s amniotic fluid.  I don’t know whether I am going to freeze to death or drown.”

-I see.

-I feel like I am falling off a cliff and my wings don’t work anymore.  Sometimes I am falling onto punji stakes, sometimes onto rocks, sometimes into a lake of fire.

-Anything else?

-I feel like I am in a classroom, naked, taking a test in linear algebra, and I’m a moth, for fuck’s sake!  I don’t have the capacity for higher order thinking!  But everyone is staring at me and my parents want me to go to medical school, and I can’t pass chemistry if I don’t pass this test!

-All of this is interesting to hear, but – you know, I am a podiatrist.

-Yes, I know.

-So – why did you come here?

-Because the light was on.

I asked my friend if he had had to ask the moth the questions that I had been asked.  He said that that particular moth had come to his office before the state had mandated them, but that he never bothers with them anyhow.  “Why”, I asked. 

-Because they never answer them straight.  They flit about and say whatever they want.  It’s not worth the effort.  You’d think they were caterpillars, for fuck’s sake.

-You’re speaking like a moth.

-It happens.

-But do moths even need your services?  And what do the orthotics look like?

-Like a tiny egg crate, but they never wear them, and they die before they get made and they go into the landfill and gunk up the Pacific.  And they die before they pay their bills.

-So why do you bother?

-Because they are my entry into the millipede market.  That’s where the money is, my friend.  Forget manufactured housing.