It is St. Patrick’s Day and I feel miserable. I’ve had a sinus infection for over a week now. Aside from one random green beer over the weekend, I am far from anything festive.
Luckily, I was able to get in to see a doctor. It was a new doctor with a really long Italian name –Abonnananti (or something like that) – that I pronounced in a more incorrect/ Arabic way – Alibabanti.
When he walked into the room, his boisterous personality and booming voice created an echo both in and outside of my overly-congested head. He was one of those Patch-Adamesque doctors who are big on a lot of small talk. While he was poking and prodding my face, he asked me everything from where I work, why I do what I do, etc. The whole line of questioning led to us talking about Chicago (where he is from) and his love for Opera and my former career. I was suddenly his primo molato, humoring him with my tales of opera in Chicago and Italy.
I was bombarded with aggressively Italian requests to sing Henry Mancini and Luciano Pavarotti’s “Mamma.” (He kept singing it grossly out of tune as if that would convince me otherwise.)
Then he caught me off guard while otoscoping my nose, “Hey! You are not wearing any green! You must wear green!” He pantomimes pinching my cheek with a threat.
“Well,” thinking quickly, “my sinuses are green, are they not?” The room fills with laughter. His med student assistant (a beautiful Indian woman) and nurse (a handsome black man with a really long and curly mohawk) were cut off by his dramatic disapproving glare.
“Now, Mr. Almond,” he scolded, “You must sing ‘A Danny Boy’ for St. Patrick’s Day since you are not wearing green!”
“Don’t you mean ‘OOOH Danny Boy?”
“That is what I said, ‘A Danny Boy!”
“I’m sorry, I can’t. I’m already running late to get back to work.” (I assumed it wasn’t the best time to tell him that “Oh Danny Boy” was written by an Englishman who’d never been to Ireland.)
“You cannot leave until you sing.”
I laugh awkwardly with a you’ve-got-to-be-friggin-kidding-me tone.
“Come,” he said, pulling me into the hallway while signalling for the med student and nurse to follow.
Once in the hallway, he starts conducting dramatically in front of my face while he starts to sing “A Danny Boy.” Turning bright red, I held my ground. Reddening himself, he turned around and made the med student and nurse start singing with him. Wanting the nightmare to be over, I caved and sang the rest of the verse.
As I sang, the hallway became a mix of bemusement, shock, and delight. It felt as if I was in a medical musical of “Memphis Belle” starring the international cast of Star Trek (myself the emotionless Spock).
After my first turn around the chorus, I started walking out without saying goodbye– visibly irritated.
“Wait,” the doctor yelled after me, “where are you going?!”
“I really have to get back to work now.”
“But you aren’t done!”
“Where’s my sucker then?”
“We don’t have suckers here.”
In likely opera-nazi fashion, I yelled, “Then no song for you!”
I quickly shuffle out of the laughing lobby and back into my 9-5 world of strange faux-Irish Utahns and green sinuses. I decided I love that doctor. But I’ll keep that to myself.
I Can't Take Me Anywhere 