ROANOKE TIMES
Copyright (c) 1996, Roanoke Times
DATE: Wednesday, July 3, 1996 TAG: 9607030013
SECTION: EXTRA PAGE: 1 EDITION: METRO
COLUMN: Ben Beagle
SOURCE: BEN BEAGLE
If you don't think it's getting harder for a sensitive person to live in the dying years of this century, you should hang out with Old Yours Truly here.
You should've been there recently in this doctor's waiting room. When you're trapped like that, you don't read the recipes in old Ladies Home Journals. New recipes in the Journal are bad enough.
I looked around for new or inspiring literature, but I didn't find much.
I'm not telling doctors to get out there and buy more current magazines. I'm just saying it isn't unusual to see Joseph Stalin on the cover of Time in some waiting rooms.
Some of the doctors have these books with big print and little words that explain the various diseases that can kill or maim a person. I don't read these anymore.
The last time I did that, I developed the symptoms of three terminal diseases while waiting for a flu shot.
Sometimes, there are pamphlets on new drugs. I read one promoting a drug that I think makes your toenails easier to cut.
After I read the possible side effects, I decided my toenails didn't need any medicine.
There was another flier announcing a seminar on healthy eating. I wasn't interested, however, in fat-free, taste-free, sausage-free gravy spread over a flour-free biscuit.
I should mention there was a fast-food place within walking distance, and this intelligent young man went out for fries and genuine sugar-loaded, person-killing, nondiet sodas for him and his wife.
If the young lady hadn't been coughing so bad, I'd have stolen her fries and run out to the parking lot. Also, the young fellow was very trim, looked like he could run very fast and was in the bloom of health.
Possibly because I'd coveted somebody else's fries, I started to read this Bible book for children; but the explanation of Original Sin got too complicated. The book was pretty sexist, too, but I could live with that, to tell you the truth.
I kept on looking and found this flier that offered a gangbuster deal on burial insurance. Four and a half grand, I think.
I would have settled at that point for the October 1969 issue of The Ladies Home Journal.
I know you could say that putting this kind of material in a waiting room shows questionable judgment.
But, listen, pal. You never know when the side effects of that toenail medicine are going to catch up with you.
LENGTH: Medium: 54 linesby CNB