New minimalist fiction by txb, beeotch!

Knowing Your Place

I'm waiting to see the non-shrink. I need to stay on this script. Can't take any more personal days this year. No more sick days, either. The non-shrink is a nurse practitioner with an expertise in prescribing anti-anxiety meds. Apparently, they save the actual shrinks for the real crazies--or people with better insurance. I'm waiting for my ten minutes to tell the non-shrink that all's well, I'm coping just fine with the stress, like a trooper, and no, I haven't had any new panic attacks. Then get the script and make an appointment with Cheryl on the way out for thirty days from now. Or maybe sixty, if the non-shrink thinks I'm getting better.

Others are waiting for their ten minutes, too. Some chick who looks pissed off. Some guy with a Bible. When in enters a dude with taped up glasses and a jacket that he's holding with both hands like a security blanket. First, he sits two seats away from the pissed off chick, then he moves...sits right next to her. Clearly, a crazy. He grips the jacket tighter, wrings it like an infant's neck. The pissed off chick is called in for her ten.

Time slips by and the Bible thumper is called in next. I look at the fish in the aquarium and consider paying extra to see an actual shrink next time, but I figure they're not any more punctual. Finally, my name is called, and as I rise to perform this little ritual to remain on the straight and narrow road of sanity and productivity, I hear the jacket man mutter, "I don't think I should even be here."

I'm not sure if I'm trying to be helpful or not when I say, "You just said that out loud. So yeah: you should be here."