The sign reads Advanced Dermatology.  The phone number at the bottom: 269.429.SKIN.  You can look it up.

  

I'm in a waiting room with several others who are here for their procedures, plus whoever they have brought to pass the time with them.  Michelle, the young lady that schedules things, told me that I could bring someone, too, if I'd like - it might be a long wait. You are scheduled for the entire day for the Mohs Procedure, and they keep cutting and analyzing tissue until the doctor feels all the skin cancer has been removed. I told her, 'No thanks, I really don't want to spend all day visiting with anyone.' She laughed and encouraged me to bring someone anyway. "I could bring Artie," I told her, and she agreed that bringing Artie along would be a fine idea. I asked if there was some place that Artie could go to the bathroom. Nervously she answered, 'Yes, they had a restroom there for everyone to use.'

 

"No, Artie needs to go outside - he's my dog." O.K., so I lied. Artie is really my son's dog, my granddog, and he lives in Toledo. But Artie is someone with whom I could truly enjoy spending the day.

 

Michelle laughed and said, "I'm guessing you are not the type of guy I should talk to about 'dressing in layers' on the day of your surgery...and that you will be coming ALONE." Good guess.

 

Ron and Arlene are in the waiting room when I arrive - Ron was the lead-off man today; he had the 7:30 a.m. slot and already has a bandage on the side of his head.  I'm up next - my appointed time is 8:00 a.m.  I return with a large bandage on the tip of my nose, and we are joined by Dave and Shirley.  Dave, too, is having something removed from his nose and is next in line.  He leaves in a few minutes and in come Lois and her daughter Rachel.  Lois has a bandage near her left eye, and she sits down next to me.  She's waiting for test results and to be stitched up.  I tell her that I hope she is not going to keep me awake with a lot of conversation and she replies, "I like you already!"

 

With Dave heading off for round one, the rest of us get acquainted.  Shirley (who brought Dave) is in her mid-thirties.  In time we learn that she has been married for fifteen years, but Dave is not her husband, just a guy she is letting live in her house because he is 'fixing things up for her.'  She operates a machine at a tool and die shop in Buchanan and also shows cats; one of them is 'third in the world!'  For some reason, I am not surprised.  Lois asks how many cats she has, and Cat Woman says twelve - plus three dogs, two snakes, some rats and a horse.  Lois starts to tell about a woman in Coloma who was arrested for having 78 cats in her house and how the Humane Society came with three trucks, some sheriff's deputies and a SWAT Team, but Rachel quickly changes the subject.

  

"My mother is 80 years old," Rachel announces. Cat Woman says she would have never guessed that, but I leaned over and whispered to Lois that I was surprised because I had her pegged for at least 84. Lois laughed again - "I still like you!" I like Lois, too - I could tell as soon as she walked in that we would hit it off.

 

Lois' daughter announces that she sells skin-care products and that her doctor recommends her to all her patients.  Ron and Arlene busily start dealing out cards, looking down and away from Rachel to avoid eye contact, leaving Cat Woman and me captive for the sales pitch.

 

Rachel's skin care products come from a place in Nixa, Missouri, and Lois adds that Rachel can go on-line and order them and the products are here the next day. Nixa to Coloma overnight, a miracle Lois calls it. The products are 'all natural' and can cure any skin ailment you have plus some internal problems. The sample packet she gives me is Sweet Cucumber Melon Satin Shea Body Butter.  I love butter, but I'm thinking this isn't going to be all that good on a baked potato no matter what Rachel claims.  Ron and Arlene stop playing cards - can't pass up something for free, and Rachel gives each of them samples. 

 

Cat Woman is excited to get a sample of Cucumber Melon, takes it gladly and tells us that she doesn't have any children because she knew when she married her husband 15 years ago that it wouldn't last, so why complicate things with children and that after about 10 years, her husband left her, was gone for five years, during which time she bought a house in Buchanan for $35,000 - a fixerupper, and he came back about a year ago but she threw him out in November and Dave, 'Handyman,' has been living in her house ever since because he is 'fixing things up.'  I have no idea what brought out all this information from Cat Woman, but now everyone seems to be in a sharing mood, and I'm beginning to wish I had brought someone along as Michelle suggested...perhaps someone I really don't like.

  

The skin care products from Nixa, MO, are made with sea salt from the Dead Sea. As Rachel puts it, that is THE Dead Sea, the one by the Jordan River in THE Holy Land, and it is a "Christian product" which Rachel says is only touched by Christian hands, but I don't know how she can say that because she gave us all samples and never checked our ID's to separate the Christians from the heathens or whatever else may be here today. Anyway, according to Rachel, even the scientists don't know exactly what is in THE Dead Sea that makes this skin cream work, but whatever it is has marvelous healing powers, and they guarantee their product contains sea salt and other assorted minerals, both known and unknown.

 

Handyman comes back from his first round with the knife, and it's Ron's turn again. Arlene eagerly goes with him. Handyman and Cat Woman start getting cozy, a bit of snuggling, and we find out that they work in the same shop in Buchanan, have since about...November, imagine that, and Lois and I are suspecting that Handyman is doing a little more than fixing things around Cat Woman's house. In a little bit, we find out that Handyman's father is a teacher, and Lois announces that her husband taught Math years ago in the Benton Harbor High School. Lois worked there, too, as a secretary in the guidance office. One day back in 1971, she says, a man came into the high school with a gun. He was looking for his girlfriend and started shooting as he walked down the hall, but he didn't hit anyone and Lois doesn't think he really meant to hit anyone, just scare his girlfriend because of something she had done.  Lois said there were kids in the office waiting to see a counselor and when she heard the guy coming down the hallway shooting, she told the kids to 'get under her desk.'

 

"How did you know to do that Lois?  Did your school have a Crisis Plan?  Did you initiate a red alert or just go code dark orange?  What about your red and green cards in the window?  Did you turn out the lights and computer monitors?  Who ordered the doughnuts for the press conference?  Was it written in your Lock Down Procedure to have kids take cover under the desk when a gunman came down the hall shooting a gun?  How did you know what to do?"

  

"Common sense, you fool.  I told the kids to 'get down under that desk,' turned the lock on the office door and called the police."  I still like Lois even though she has called me 'fool.'

 

"What happened then?"

  

"Well, Nick, our school security officer, heard the shooting, ran up behind this guy and tackled him.  By then the guy had run out of bullets, so Nick smacked him on the head with his nightstick.  Beat him up pretty good, too, before the police arrived."

 

All this information...and it's only 9:30!