Lemon Pledge

Earl of Plaid 2015

“I forget why I’m telling you my innermost thoughts,” I said to my shrink.

Because that’s why you’ve come to see me,” he said.

“No. I’ve come to see you because I haven’t laughed since I was thirty-nine.”

“Why thirty-nine and not forty or thirty-eight? he asked.

“I was depressed the day I turned thirty-nine thinking that in another year I’d be forty and then fifty was right around the corner. And let’s not forgot,” I said, “I’m paying you to help me find these answers—if I just give them to you I might as well stay home with my birds and eat pop tarts.”

‘What birds?” he asked.

“Petey, my parakeet and Kate Smith my canary.”

“Do you keep them in the same cage?”

“Would you put a dog and cat in the same cage?” I asked him. My chair arm was wood and had a greasy feel to it. I smelled my arm and it smelled like Lemon Pledge.

“That’s an odd thing you just did,” he said.

I was getting frantic trying to hold this conversation and think of ways to get the hell out of his office.

I needn’t have worried. The Doctor stood, walked over to the bookcase and removed a camera from between two books on “The Zen of Masturbation”.

“I’ll look at the videos between now and your next appointment. I’ll be able to tell a lot from your body language. We’ll talk about it.”

“Don’t make me laugh,” I said and opened the closet door thinking it the hallway door. A woman in a nurses uniform was standing there behind a video camera on a tripod. She pointed me to the exit door.