Dr. Unterguggenburgerheimer!
Diagnosed on January 9, 2011.
It was this past Wednesday that Supersagacity met the Autocratic Bumbler, ushering in the most cordial period in human–Magyar relations in years—at least since that hot lesbian scene with Xev of B3K and Lomia of P4X that I’d seen on TV years ago.
At least, that’s what I read in a newspaper while sitting in Dr. Unterguggenburgerheimer’s waiting room on Friday, awaiting my annual physical. The deceptionist had taken my name, rank, serial number, and soul, and told me to go sit down and wait my turn like a good little boy, so that’s exactly what I had done (even though I more closely resemble a girthy middle-aged man). She even gave me a lollipop to keep me occupied while I waited!
Hours passed. I entertained myself by cutting the newspaper and various magazines into tiny little pieces and gluing the pieces to the wall, floor, ceiling, furniture, and some of the other waiting patients. Finally, as the wall clock struck eleventeen, Dr. Unterguggenburgerheimer’s deceptionist squawked across the waiting room like only a cranky old lady could: “Phillip Norbert Årp! The doctor will see you now!”
“No he won’t!” I retorted, contorting my face into the tortuous shape of a tortellini. “I’m invisible!”
The deceptionist rolled her eyes. Other patients rolled up into little balls and squiffled out of the room like cluster lizards. After holding my breath until I turned blue, at last I relented and stood up sullenly. “Fine!” I continued my barrage of puerility. “I’m going! See? I’m going!” I shuffled out of the waiting room and into Dr. Unterguggenburgerheimer’s examination chamber.
First, the doctor ordered me to strip down to my underwear, which was a bit of a problem, because I wasn’t wearing any underwear—or anything else for that matter. The doctor just rolled his eyes and waited impatiently while I nakedly rifled through my eigenbriefcase in search of any pair of underwear I could find. Fortunately, I keep a pair of the floor-mounted variety buried in there just for these occasions, so after much dawdling, lollygagging, and tomfoolery, I was able to meet Dr. Unterguggenburgerheimer’s strict dress code.
With another impatient sigh that made me feel like the tomfool that I am, Dr. Unterguggenburgerheimer pulled out his doctorly tools and went to work poking, prodding, and occasionally actually examining me. This seemed to go on for hours, until I realized that the clock in the exam room was, for some reason unknown to me, running at many dozens times the speed of a normal clock. It counted up to 300 and had only one hand, too; clearly this was no ordinary “clock.” Perhaps this was the kind of clock a time traveler used! Was Dr. Unterguggenburgerheimer really a time traveler, sent back in time just to poke, peek, and pork me with his steely implements of medicinery?
“Well, Mr. Årp,” Dr. Unterguggenburgerheimer, Ph.D., M.D., J.D., S.T.D., began, “You’re a highly… unusual individual. And your mother dresses you funny.”
“Of course she does!” I returned. “If she didn’t, I’d have to do it myself!”
Dr. Unterguggenburgerheimer just rolled his eyes around in his doctorly hands. He continued: “And you have… quite a number of things wrong with you. Honestly, you have pretty much everything wrong with you. Your nose is infected with rhinovirus, and the rest of you with adenovirus. Your pores are oozing mimivirus, your ears poxvirus, and your groinular region herpesvirus. Every inch of your skin is crawling with enterovirus, picornavirus, picardvirus, and even rikervirus.”
“Oh, no!” I squeaked, aghast.
“Oh, yes,” the doctor continued, “And you’ve got a terrible case of Iresine syndrome, Rugalan fever, and Thalusian flu. You seem to have simultaneously come down with tennis elbow, swimmer’s ear, athlete’s foot, miner’s lung, Jeep seat, crotch rot, trench foot, clown’s shoe, and lawyer’s ass.”
“Oh, no no no!” I whined.
“No, it’s true!” Dr. Unterguggenwhatever interrupted, amused at my whinery. “Now, where was I? Ah, yes! You have head lice, ear lice, nose lice, and toenail lice. Dugongs abound in your ear canals. And back to the topic of poxvirus: You are suffering from chicken pox, monkey pox, pincer monkey pox, dog pox, underdog pox, small pox, medium pox, large pox, cow pox, cow flox, cow flocks, and, it would seem, cow flops. And finally… I don’t really know how to break this to you, Mr. Årp, but… you stink.” I brøderbunded audibly. “You smell like someone boiled rancid cabbage in raw effluent and then left it out in the sun until it was so ripe that not even a skeezle-wumpus with a concrete-reinforced nose would go near it.”
He paused to let me catch up, then continued: “I’m sorry. You have a long, long life ahead of you. I wish I had better news.” With that, he grimly turned and left the exam room. I was dumbstruck—struck dumber than a Dumbledong action figure peddler in a sea of merchant mariners.
Fortunately it took only moments for my larynx to reboot itself and come back online. “But doctor! Wait! Can’t you cure any of this!?” I shouted out through the exam room doorway. Gnomes started accreting there suddenly: A bad omen if there ever was one.
“Of course I can,” Dr. Untersomething answered. He came back into the room. “But with your bloated corpse in the state that it’s in… Well, if I were you, I’d just go demand a refund. It’s clearly defective!” With that, he turned and left again.
I pondered for a few moments. Where would I go to get a new body? “Lord, help me!” I shouted to the four winds (and one Dumbledong action figure). No answer. “No, seriously this time, Lord… help me!!” I bawled like a little girl still in her pigtails who just had them both cut off in a linestriping accident. Still no answer was forthcoming.
I thought. I pondered. I pondered hard—harder than I ever had in my Pnårpy little life. The little monkeys that scurry up and down my axons and ganglia got the workout of their lives. How could I get hold of God himself? My moose antlers had been disconnected last week, so I couldn’t just call him. My nightly prayers were always answered with swarms of Cappadocian Tweezer Ants (if they were answered at all), so that wouldn’t work either. I couldn’t even begin to guess his city, state, and ZIP, let alone his ZIP+4. And there were no churches in my town anymore, not since the treacle mine explosion in 1829 had wiped them all out and Rev. Nahum G. Dalhousie, the sole survivor of the disaster, had declared my entire town so inherently wicked that no Christian had been allowed to build a new church within the city limits since.
But then… an idea! Perhaps the Jesus store they recently built in the old Spend-O-Mart building on Crunkner Boulevard could help! I resolved at once to go there next week, just as soon as I finished firebombing Dr. Stupidface’s clinic for giving me all this terrible news…