The doctor, the ENT, is so far 10 minutes late, so I’m just sitting in a high-backed black chair, waiting. It feels suave, like a private salon. A huddle of tongue depressors calls out to me from their glass jar, and I Google which came first, them or popsicle sticks.
The answer is them, so I let them know. They look even more downtrodden than before. They would be scowling if they could, but they have no way to show it. They’re imagining a world where they’re attached to frozen treats, a world where they’re known as tongue delighters.
I’m thinking I have time, so to lighten the mood I draw little smiley faces on the whole gross, all 144 of them, counting as I go, and I put them back in their jar, one by one. From where I’m sitting, they look like I’ve made them so happy.
The doctor is still busy, but his PA finally visits my nose. He sticks a probe in each nostril. “I see the problem right away,” he says. “Your nose is all fucked up.” I tell him that’s why I’ve come in today, because of the fucked up part of the nose on my face. He says he’ll go tell the doctor.
Meanwhile, the tongue depressors have been plotting. It turns out I had them all wrong and they hated that, me making them grin. Somehow they managed to turn their smiles upside down, and all 144 are trying to make eye contact, but I pretend to be on my phone.
The doctor comes in and says the PA told him that my nose is all fucked up on the inside.
“It sure is,” I tell him.
Each nostril gets another probe and the doctor confirms, “Yep. All fucked up.”
Then he says he wants to look at my tongue and turns to grab a depressor.
“What the fuck,” he says. “Did you draw frowny faces on all of my trusty steeds?” I can tell the tongue depressors like to be called his trusty steeds, but they don’t change their composure.
“No,” I say, but he doesn’t believe me, so I tell him the truth: “They seemed down so I drew smiley faces on them, each one, one by one, very delicately, all 144. I handled the whole thing very delicately. I thought they would be delighted.”
“They hate being drawn on,” the doctor says. “They fucking hate it. Oh, god. Oh, I hate to do this, but really—it’s what you’ve done.”
He picks up the whole jar and looks me right in the eye as he slides each one, one by one, all 144, into a paper shredder. I hear their little screams as they split apart.
“You did this,” the doctor says again. “I hope you’re happy.”