Having completed my auscultation, I removed the stethoscope from my ears and rested it around my neck.  I really wasn't in the mood for an auscultation -- it was almost four in the afternoon and I was a bit tired -- but you're pretty much required by law to use a stethoscope on every single patient that enters your office.  It's something that they really push on you in medical school.  If you ask me, I think that it's just a ploy to sell more stethoscopes.

Dr. Quinn was not a real doctor.  Women can't be real doctors.

"There, all done," I said satisfactorily.

"What was that?" asked the patient.

"What was what?" I asked in return.

"That!  What you just did with the stethoscope there.  What was that about?"

"That was my auscultation.  Everyone gets an auscultation."

"Yes, but aren't you supposed to put the stethoscope up to my chest in order to listen to my heartbeat?" he questioned, a bit ruder than I would have deemed necessary.

"And what did I do?" I replied.

"You put it on my leg!  You sat there for five minutes and listened to my leg!"

"Why yes, yes I did.  What's your point?"

"What good does that do?" he complained.  "The listening to my leg thing.  Did you even hear anything?"

"No.  And it's a good thing too," I countered.

"How on earth is that a good thing?"

"Because if I HAD heard something, something like a heartbeat in your leg, that'd be a little odd, don't you think?  And as a doctor, an expert in the field of medicine, it's my job -- nay, duty! -- to check for such anomalies."

"That's the most absurd thing that I have ever heard!"

"That's because you haven't heard about my exit strategy for Iraq!   It involves mayonnaise."

Take two of these and don't call me.

"How the hell-- Argh!" screamed the patient in frustration.

"You know," I said, trying to keep my cool, "you shouldn't be so quick to judge others.  I mean, unless of course you went to law school and then somehow became a judge after years of work.  Then I guess it would be your job to judge people.  You're not a judge, are you?"

"I can't stand this anymore!"

"Then have a seat.  By the way, what are you in here for anyway?"

"It's supposed to be a prostate exam."  I blanched.  "You do know what a prostate is, don't you?" the patient continued.

"Of course," I said, regaining my composure.  "They don't exactly give away medical degrees these days.  I had to pay for shipping and handling!"

"Look, I don't really have all day.  Can we just get this prostate check over with?"

"Well, I'm not sticking my hand up there."

"You're not, what!?" the patient exclaimed.  "But you're a doctor!"

"I know this.  I went to school."

"So, what about about my prostate?"

"Well, I'm sure it's still there.  It's not like it can fall out or anything."

"Yes, I'm quite sure that it's still there, you moron.  I've been feeling some discomfort in that area and I was advised to get it checked out."

"Is that normal?"

"What?"

"The discomfort."

"No, you goddamn idiot, the discomfort is not normal!  That's why I'm here!"

"Fine, fine.  I guess you're pretty stuck on this whole 'have someone else solve all your problems for you' thing.  Maybe I can use something that isn't my hand, like a stick or something."

"What the hell?  You can't be serious?" questioned the patient.

"It's a heckuva lot safer than me just sticking my hand up there.  I mean, imagine all of the germs I could get."

It looks something like this I think.

"Which is why you're supposed to wear rubber gloves."

"Oh, you mean the finger balloons?"

"No, you dimwit!  The rubber gloves.  The huge box of rubber gloves that you have sitting right there on the counter.  You're supposed to wear them."

"Oh, ha ha," I laughed, but only halfway meaning it.  "Wear them.  That's a good one.  I like to blow them up and then they look like a cow udder.   The trick is to not get them so full that they --"

"Ok, that's it," said the patient, hopping to his feet.  "I am done here and I am NEVER coming back.  You are, by far, the most incompetent doctor I have ever encountered.  I plan on filing a few complaints with the city."

With that, he flew out the door and was gone quicker than the one time I lied to a prostitute and told her that I had money in my room.  I planned on double charging his insurance company for wasting my time and dirtying my stethoscope.  But I wasn't mad.  He was my last patient for the day and I had errands to run.  Maybe I should just take tomorrow off.   All of this doctoring has made me sleepy.