Dr. Ahab

Hi, everybuzzy. Smokey L. Robinson here, and I'm tellin' you the truth today. Starting with this: the L is for Love. Smokey Love Robinson. I'll give the ladies a minute to recover before I continue.



Okay.

We're taking a short trip back in time now, to a little over a month ago, the day that I sauntered past "The Future." As I mentioned, I was coming out of an early-morning medical procedure when I saw The Future. It wasn't hard to imagine I'd be seeing something, since, also as I mentioned, I was on some absolutely awesome anesthetic (hereinafter, the "AAA").

I got a call this week from my gastrointerologist, with what seemed like good news. "Your biopsy came back negative," meaning, in this case, that I don't have Celiac Sprue. I know, thank Zod, right? So I can go on eating anything I want, but the mysterious stomach pains which sometimes plague me will evidently go on unexplained. This is why I say it seemed like good news.

The doctor told me to watch out for spicy foods and dairy, which is exactly what I told him was my problem in our first meeting in June or July. But the thing is, we already knew that. Everyone knows the perils of eating spicy food. It's why Indian people and country singers make such great masochists: you can overdo it with the cumin, but you run the social risk of committing the massive party foul of crapping your pants.

But I am neither Indian nor a country singer. I'm just your average bloggerizer with a trick digestive tract.

It's a month since my visit to the [redacted] Center, and I'm finally finishing coming down from the AAA, or perhaps it's the roofie I got slipped last night at the bar when I accidentally drank that chick's cosmopolitan instead of mine. It's three months since my first visit to Dr. [redacted], whom I had really hoped would be a better criminologist. This is what I was thinking last night, when it occurred to me that maybe he was a better criminologist than that. Maybe I was the one unsolvable case that was torturing him and keeping him up nights. Maybe he was tuning in to reruns of House, or ER, or Grey's Anatomy, or Scrubs (Zod, I hope it wasn't Scrubs), trying to find some clue as to what was wrong with me.

Audible gasp! Maybe I was his white whale! I read Moby-Dick once! (Once!) I am therefore qualified to make this analogy! Maybe he was up nights, sitting at the kitchen table in front of a stack of books and a six-year-old laptop trailing wires to the wall because its battery was dead, searching the realm of available knowledge (including WebMD) for an answer. Maybe he was back to the late-night drinking, smoking again too, rubbing his jowls or the freshly waxed top of his head and muttering sweet nothings into his stethoscope. I mean, maybe the mysterious ailment that was eating me up inside was eating him up inside too!

Now, I realize that strays a little bit from more traditional representations of Ahab and Moby Dick, that maybe my gut was really more like Sir Gawaine's green dragon. I also understand that my "Dr. [redacted]'s Office as Pequod" allegory completely neglects the role of Starbuck, who may have been represented by the stern and stentorian, yet somehow warm and welcoming German woman who manned the actual office at the Dr. [redacted]'s office. I'm not really sure how, though. And the thing is, I don't really know Sir Gawaine. I read Moby-Dick once (once!), and Ahab went crazy trying to catch that whale, much like I hope Dr. [redacted] goes trying to solve my stomach issue.

I would love to read the story of that doctor's slow descent into madness. Three months till Christmas, everybuzzy. Let's get busy on this one.