I Still Don't Sleep At Night

My doctor had the cheeriest thing to say to me this afternoon as he fixed me up. I came in with my two-month- old, untreated. infected cat bite. We both had a moderate laugh about the fact that the cat (mine) never had had its shots, and that if I had had rabies I'd be dead by now. He is not excited by much, one of the things I like about him. I forgive him for the obligatory disparaging comments about my Diet Coke and cigarette breath. He is East European and very intellectual. Normally I am reading the paper, and we exchange unpleasantries about what hell on earth the current regime in this country is. I know that he just got back from Europe, and I expected him to be more depressed than usual about the current state of things. Instead he surprised me by saying in reply to my comment that soon Bush would see to it that there was no more Medicaid. "I don't think he'll be around long enough. This situation in Iraq has really cost him." Or something to that effect. What sterling words of joy and optimism! Does he really give Americans credit for being that intelligent? I had just read the three part series in Salon Part I, Part II and Part III but for some reason it hadn't buoyed me up the way this quiet man's throw-off comment had. Always before he and his wife had made such very dark, hopeless comments about the state of the nation. They hadn't even worried about appearing anti-American. And now this ray of Pollyanna-like hope on a sunshiney day. I felt like skipping out of his office, but I was afraid my band-aid would come off. From the Eastern European lips to God's ears, as they say.