Last year, I starred as a participant in the ‘Dr. Pat’ reality TV show. As you’re all aware by now, Dr. Pat is a rather uncharismatic medical guy who drones on and on about our pet ailments and how we need his extra-special prescriptions, and only these, in order to return to a permanent clean bill of health.
You’ve all heard the award-winning catchy jingle:
Don’t get ill, get even!
Pat gives you helluh script, you my friends be leavin’!
But my experience of Dr. Pat has been extremely unsatisfying.
Day 1:
First time I arrived, I told him:
“I’ve had a really bad cough.”
He gaped at me dully for a few seconds and said, “What’s it like having a really bad cough?”
“Pretty bad,” I said.
He gave me the script and said, “Don’t feel bad in future.”
Day 2:
The next episode I came back and told him my cough was gone, but my head really hurt. It must be a side-effect.
He paused once again, and I found myself getting a little bored again. He asked me,
“Does it hurt to have a sore head?”
I nodded. “I’ve heard tell, they say having a sore head is painful. So they say.” The audience whooped with excitement, but I wasn’t really feeling it.
I took the script and went back.
Day 3:
My next side-effect, this time from prescription 2, was severe diarrhea.
“My guts really hurt!” I moaned, wishing I could somehow staple my intestines to my rib cavity to stop them from just splurging all over the studio floor.
“How does it feel to have really bad guts?” he asked me.
“It’s pretty rough.”
“So you feel pretty rough about having bad guts?”
“Yes, I told you the first time, you, you, you…” I moaned, as the audience cheered on Dr. Pat, who sat like a rock statue, tight-fixed and emotionless, in that stupid chair of his.
“Is feeling pretty rough about having bad guts an unpleasant feeling?”
I would have stormed out, but I was barely able to move, as I stammered… ‘Y… y… yes. It… It does.”
This went on for about 40 episodes. Each time I got a new prescription, and each time the old symptoms went away, but they were replaced with a new horrible side effect.
After the series ended, I was landed with a bill of $499 999.13. I wasn’t very happy about it, but they told me that in accordance with a legally binding contract I had never even heard of, far less signed, I was going to have to suck it up.
On the plus side, though, Dr. Pat is himself being sued in a class-action lawsuit by hundreds of previous patients who claim he is unfit for practice.
I hear he’s trying to plead innocence on the grounds of insanity!
Still, if they manage to overcome those obstacles, I’m sure there is some other illness of some kind he can fake.
And so the carousel continues…
Author: Wallace Runnymede
