Bud Grossmann’s Words of the Week for the Week of June 1, 2014 Previously unpublished fiction. © 2014 by Bud Grossmann. All Rights Reserved.   Photographer Reflected in Party Balloon, 1984 © 1984 by Bud Grossmann MEDICAL CONSULTATION L ate in the afternoon on the last Thursday of May, when he was six days shy of sixty-five, at which age a certain Wisconsin man expects to enjoy significantly lower medical costs than those he has painfully endured as a sixty-four-year-old, that same man, coming out of the Madison West Side Costco check-out line, was introduced by his companion, a female retired registered nurse, to an incoming shopper, a female urologist about twenty years the man’s junior. The words “glamorous” and “vibrant” seemed descriptive of the tall, tanned, well-dressed woman.      While the women chatted, the man, though not a medical practitioner himself, discreetly looked the physician over, from the top of her well-coifed head to the brightly lacquered nails of the toes at the tips of her flat-soled sandals. Reaching across his shopping cart and taking the doctor’s left hand, palm down in both of his own, the man found no bracelet upon her wrist, no wedding band or other ring on any finger.      The doctor did not flinch at the act of familiarity but asked, “What are you looking for?”      “Your jewelry,” said the male Costco shopper. “I’m curious as to how a urologist spends her earnings. This very afternoon I spoke with Dean Health Care about the charges for a kidney stone adventure I had in March. Twelve thousand dollars for the forty minutes Dr. Richards spent with me in the operating room! Thirteen hundred for each of two anesthesiologists!”      The female urologist shrugged in reply. “Yes, yes, stones are costly. I wish you had called me.”      No longer bold, the man blushed. “I’ll keep you in mind, doctor,” he said, “should the need arise again.” O ut in the parking lot, putting the Costco purchases into the trunk of the female retired registered nurse’s Taurus, the old man smiled as he recognized a missed opportunity. He was glad, though, that he hadn’t thought of another version of his parting line. “I’ll keep you in mind, doctor...,” he was now glad he had not said. “I’ll keep you in mind, should the need arise, or fail to arise, in the future.” ♦         ARCHIVES         Click for a list of other Words of the Week I would welcome your thoughts on this page (or any of my others).  Write to me at the following address.  Please be sure to spell Grossmann with two n’s and mention what page you are writing about. Thanks!  BUD GROSSMANN Top of this page | HOME | Fine Photography | Picture of the Day | Writings | | Words of the Week | Mom & Pop Prop. Mgt. | FAQ |

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