Confidential Treatment Report.

 

One of my patients, who shall remain nameless (Landon Purnak), is beginning to evince a mild suspicion. When I exit the examination room at periodic intervals as required by State Law, I'm often flabbergasted when I return to find him barely leaning against one of the partitions, giving me the side-eye and mumbling about the pending indictment of Councilman Earl Rothstein for conducting private occurrences without a license. I hasten to have him lie face-down on the mahogany carpeted floor. He usually complies, but I can tell that when he was younger than he is now, someone said something in his presence that he found not a little 'off-putting'. I try to provide him with a list of reasons. He pretends that all my efforts will lead in only one direction. I inform him that I've had 'the talk' with his nearest and dearest and that they all agree with my preliminary assessment.

When I notice that he's lost consciousness, I know that I now have time to get my affairs in order. Also, I decide to order in. This will save time in traffic and could quite possibly save my crumbling marriage. I arrange to have his body flown by a designated carrier to Bainbridge Associates in Tecumseh, Maryland. There they will do a complete work-up and let me know in the morning whether I should make the trek myself, or if one too many out-of-town jaunts could seriously affect my tolerance for paradigmatic boilerplate. When I furtively glance into a private area at a local financial services establishment, I'm pleasantly surprised to see a gathering of like-minded parolees receiving an emergency briefing on unfunded mandates. Even as they snicker among themselves during pregnant pauses, I know that one day soon I'll be taking them on a camping trip in the Shenandoah Mountains and teaching them important life-skills.

The next day when I sign for a package at the urging of a drably attired colleague-in-waiting, the temperature outside has already reached the mid 70s, if that. There are reports of recently retired sportscasters escalating their campaign to 'take back the night', whatever that means. Meanwhile, my estranged applicant, Morton Lockwood, has placed a soiled map inside a sealed envelope in the hope that this would be seen as a 'difference-making' tactic. I never was a fan of the 'cut of his jib' but I resolved to try like the dickens to get him approved for an emergency optical alignment. The last he was heard from, the reports indicate that he had foresworn any involvement in the Tender Moments Club. Needless to say, all of us here regard that as a net positive, albeit with some serious misgivings.

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