My mother and I had been waiting in her doctor’s office for over 90 minutes, surrounded by other elderly patients and their middle aged children. Her doctor’s last name is unpronounceable but his first name is quite simple, so everyone calls him Dr. Rufus.
Mom had a bad cough and was uncomfortable and cranky; she was never a patient woman and today what little patience she may have had was long gone. “Let’ s go,” she kept saying, “Let’s go home and I’ll have hot tea with honey.” I murmured a platitude about how busy Dr. Rufus was, but she wasn’t buying it. “He’s probably still at lunch,” she said loudly, as the other caregivers in the waiting room shot me a sympathetic look. “I want to go home,” said Mom; “I’m 90. I don’t have enough time left to waste it here,” and the other elderly parents in the waiting room nodded, muttering their agreement.
Eventually a 60-ish man wheeled his 90-ish father out of the examining room. “Dr. Rufus is an idiot,” he said furiously to the room at large as he pushed the wheelchair past us, his father hanging on for dear life. “What a doofus.”
I found this amusing. Dr. Rufus is big and soft and pear shaped. He has droopy eyes and droopy jowls and droopy posture. He tells corny jokes that he finds hysterical and when he laughs at his own jokes he actually goes, “Yuk, yuk yuk.” Whenever I see Dr. Rufus I think that if Deputy Dawg had gone into medicine instead of law enforcement, this would be the end result.
“Dr. Doofus” I said softly, thinking that if ever a nickname fit, this was it, and, unwisely, I chuckled. That’s when I discovered that against all odds my mother, who is extremely hard of hearing, had heard me. She was enchanted. “Dr. Doofus,” she chanted loudly, ”Dr. Rufus the Doofus.”
“Ma,” I said, horrified, as I helped her into the examining room “please stop. You’re embarrassing me. He’s going to hear you.”
“Serves the doofus right for keeping us waiting,” she said, but she stopped.
After the appointment I took Mom home; she lives with my older sister and as I dropped her off I recounted the highlights of the visit, including the part about “Dr. Doofus.” “Hmmm, “ said my sister, “but did he say what’s wrong with her?”
I sighed. “He asked me what I thought the trouble was.” Dr. Rufus does that a lot.
“Let me guess,” said my sister, “then he said she had a bad cough and asked if you wanted a prescription.” I nodded. “He has a great grasp of the obvious,” said my sister, within earshot of my mother. “What a doofus.”
“That’s ‘Dr.’ Doofus to you,” said my mother. “Dr. Rufus the Doofus,” and she was off again.
In our family, something like this takes on a life of its own and before the week was over the entire family was talking about Dr. Doofus. “We need to stop this, ” I kept telling my sister. ”Ma’s gonna slip and call him Dr. Doofus to his face.” My sister thought for a moment. “Well, I’m sure he’s heard it before,” she said. She paused reflectively. “He’s probably been called worse,” she added.
Two weeks later Mom and I were back in Dr. Rufus’s office for the follow-up visit. “How long will Dr. Doofus make us wait today?” asked mom loudly. “Ma,” I said earnestly, “you need to stop saying that. You’re going to hurt his feelings.” I was all set to say more but Dr. Rufus swept into the examining room.
“How’s my favorite girl?” he asked my mother as I held my breath. “I’m fine, Dr. Rufus,” said mom sweetly. “And how are you?” And I allowed myself to exhale.
Twenty minutes later we were on our way out. Dr. Rufus patted my mother on the shoulder and shook my hand. “She’s doing great,” he told me, beaming. “Excellent,” I said, “Thank you Dr. Doofus.”