gold digger

My desk was piled high with charts to complete. My phone was ringing off the hook - patients requesting transportation, hospitals with patients being discharged, home health aides calling out for the day. The temperature was over 90 degrees and humid. I wished that I had called out.

While trying to complete some paperwork, I received an irate phone call from Mr. Dubois, my patient's son. Although I had never met the man, we talked at least four times a week. He was a professional complainer. No, really. He collected complaints for some big company's quality assurance department and compiled the complaints into reports. He did the same with the care his mother received. There were complaints about the home health aides - they were early or late, too fat or too frail, too dark, too hispanic, too nosy, too aloof. There were complaints about the meals on wheels - too salty, too bland, too hot, too cold. It was endless. Mr. Dubois never identified himself on the phone; he merely launched into a five-minute monologue of fury. I would listen quietly and when he stopped for air, I would ask: "I'm sorry, but to whom am I speaking?" He would then become a typhoon of grievances.

I was actually scheduled to visit Mrs. Dubois that morning. Her son was happy to hear this, and said he would meet me at the house. He wanted to discuss some matters face to face. I had somehow managed to avoid meeting this man for several years. I saw no way around the meeting, and agreed to see him at 11. The avalanche of charts on my desk would have to wait.

Mrs. Dubois' house was only a few miles from my office, but traffic was awful. While fidgeting with the radio, I glanced in the rearview mirror at a middle-aged man driving a convertible BMW. Ours cars were at a standstill, and I watched him groom himself in his visor mirror. He smoothed down his eye brows and brushed his hair. There was a stripe of gray hair down the middle of his head that made him look like a skunk. The air conditioning in my truck was not working, and I felt a puddle form in my bra. Several cars ahead, I saw that the congestion was due to a road block. I again looked for a song on the radio and looked at the beamer behind me. The man had his right hand in front of his face, and he seemed to be missing a finger. I focused my eyes on his hand, confused. After a long moment, I located the missing digit. It was far up his nostril.

I screamed and pounded on the steering wheel. I wanted to be anywhere but in that truck in that traffic. Don't look, I told myself. Think of something pretty and clean - babies, kittens, rainbows. But I couldn't stop myself. My eyes were magnetically drawn to my mirror and the nose picker in the beamer. It was horrible. I was transfixed. His face contorted with the effort of reaching far up into his nostril. His eyes bulged and his mouth gaped open. Just when I thought the worst was over, he removed the finger, slick and shiny with snot, examined it, and PUT IT IN HIS MOUTH!

I could no longer hear the traffic around me or feel the heat crushing me. I was instantly transported back to third grade where we had two notorious nose pickers: Jack Turner and Moe Cardiello. Both were committed to the act of picking, but varied greatly in their particular styles. Jack was an unabashed nose picker. He would raise his hand to answer a question with his forefinger firmly wedged up a nostril. He was so proud of his work, he actually saved it. He had what we called a booger board - a piece of cardboard he kept in his desk where he smeared his snot and let it dry like macaroni art. Moe, on the other hand, was a stealth picker. He would jab his finger so quickly up his nose he would sometimes miss and poke himself in the eye. Then, to destroy the evidence, he would eat his boogers. Some days he was not as vigilant. He would allow himself to leisurely poke a pretzel up his nose as if he were dipping it in sauce and then suck the tip of the pretzel.

I was startled by the blaring of the beamer's horn behind me. The cars in front of me had moved ahead. The nose picker was gesticulating wildly at me and pounding on his horn. The truck and I shuddered back into action and I sped away from the beamer.

Sitting in the truck, I dreaded going into Mrs. Dubois' house. She was 95 and very sweet, but was extremely hard of hearing and had no small degree of dementia. One of the many complaints Mr. Dubois lodged frequently was that the home health aides stole from his mother. Once, it was a Cartier wristwatch he had given his mother for her 90th birthday. Then it was a bag of tube socks. Finally, it was a gold-plaited fountain pen. Mr. Dubois never apologized when his mother produced these items sooner or later.

I reluctantly walked up the steps and expected Mr. Dubois to be hiding behind the door brandishing a riding crop. I knocked (which I knew Mrs. Dubois couldn't hear) and entered the house. She was hanging up the telephone when she noticed me. I smiled and shouted hello to the plump old lady. She smiled and motioned me to sit next to her. I screamed pleasantries at her, smiling and gesturing wildly. She probably understood every fifth word, so I sounded something like: "How....today?....humid....cars....swimming...." She didn't seem to mind.

From behind me I heard the door creak open. The familiar, dreaded voice called out "Hello, mother." I stood and smoothed my skirt, preparing for the onslaught of complaints and questions that were headed my way. The first thing I noticed was the gray skunk stripe heading towards me. The next thing I noticed was the right hand extended, reaching out to shake my hand. The smile dropped from my face and I clasped my hands behind my back. The picker in the beamer smirked at me. I prayed for a seizure to strike one of us down.