A Conversation With My Radiologist (Paraphrased)

Ladies and gentlemen of the reading public, meet Rachel. At least, meet the cipher that is Rachel, because Rachel isn't her real name. Anyway...

Rachel: What are you up to this weekend?

Me: blah blah blah, probably nothing. You?

Rachel: Getting... ready to go on vacation... (insert strange awkward pauses that are telling for such a short sentence)

Me: Oh yeah? Going anywhere or staying home?

Rachel: Mexico...maybe

Me: Wait, you're going to Mexico 'maybe'?

Rachel: Yeah, my boyfriend and I are on the outs.

Me: Oh. Youch.

5 minutes later, after maximum radiation zappage...

Rachel: Ok, so my boyfriend and I are fighting kind of at the moment. Actually, we've been kind of fighting for, like, five weeks. And I'm the type of person that wants to finish conversations when they happen, he just gets up and leaves and gets wasted with his friends. Come on, a 31-year-old guy getting wasted with his friends?

Me: Um, I'm 30-

Rachel: No, I mean like every night; all the time. Now, granted, I'm 26 and there's a bit of an age difference, but I don't need anybody to take care of me; I'm super independent. He moved up here from Miami, and he was living there, but he had this crazy bitch ex-girlfriend. She had a kid, but she was all kinds of messed up: you know, probably drugs, money problems. She bought a car but he put his name on the title because of her bad money problems. Stuff like that. But this is the type of shit that just goes on all the time. He travels a lot for his job so we don't really see each other for months at a time, so I think we might still be just getting used to each other, but we've been living together since September and things are a little more testy than they should be. Both of our names are on the lease, and it's a 14 month lease because of how we dealt with the landlord, but now he's saying stuff like, "I don't know if this relationship will work the way it's going." And then I'm like, "great, I'm glad that we might go to another country and you could leave me there." And then I think, well, it is all-inclusive. If it sucks I guess I could just drink my way through it. But my brother just kind of says to me, "well, you really fucked up now." Which I guess I can agree with. He's about the same age as my boyfriend and he gives good advice. I dunno, should I go? I just need a vacation. I need a mental vacation from this place and all of that.

Me: Uh...

Rachel: It's cool. Poor Gina [another fake name for another radiologist] has been listening to this for, like, a month.

Gina: You should go.

Rachel: Yeah. I don't know.

What you should take away from this: Once you're a patient, you're family. They even save me the good coffee. I love you, Cleveland Clinic.