Dog Ears, Not The Page Kind

It was my turn to pick up Pat at the plastic surgery clinic. Either that or short straws were involved.

"Hi, Gregory," Pat said. He was in a wheelchair, wearing pajamas and green Crocs. "Thanks for picking me up."

"Sure. As long as we decline some nouns along the way."

His left armpit was black. The surgery had been to take out his "dog ears." He had flanking flaps of flesh, remnants of his breasts, and he wanted them taken off.

"Dog ears gone?" I said.

"Yep. This was my seventh surgery for this. Dad was yelling at me the whole way here. He's tired of this, and I'm even more tired of it."

I helped him to my car. Then I drove him to his parent's house. Pat was dreading having to deal with parents for the next several days as he recovered.

"My mom is probably crying because she didn't get to ruin my day."

"Mm?"

"Yeah, she wanted Coit to come and replace the blinds in my room. Can you believe it? Just as I'm there recovering from surgery. She did it just to ruin my day. That's what she does. She could have done it for the last several years, but no, she had to chose today to do it. But I foiled her. I pretended I was Dad on the phone and canceled the appointment. She's going to be so disappointed when Coit doesn't show up to make my life hell. Ha, ha."

"Heh, heh."

"But I'm sick of this. There are 38 endocrinologists in the area and not one will see a transgender like me. It's out of prejudice, nothing more. But because I can't see an endocrinologist, my hormones are not in the right ratio. Too much estrogen or testosterone, and everything is thrown off. So that's why we get my breasts cut off, and then they grow back like mushrooms!"

"Mm."

"I'm sure Mom is going to make my life hell. She's always like this when I come back from surgery."

The conversation turned from one mother to another. I told Pat that Mom was very anxious about my search for her birth parents.

"Does your Mom masturbate?"

"Uh........................................................................................................................................................................................................................................................................................................................................................................"

[After calling Google to have my dots replenished]

"No, she doesn't. I mean, uh............."

"I understand. I just wondered what she did to relieve stress."

"I think she does jumbo word searches. Does that count?"

"Ha, ha-- oof." Pat winced. His dog ears were barking at him.

"Are you okay?"

"Yeah."

"Anyway, the latest finding is that Mom is related to a woman whose mother was also adopted, and they nothing about her birth parents. My mom was born in 1941 and this woman's mom was born in 1945. It could be that, since we're related through DNA, that the woman gave up at least two children for adoption, four years apart. Mom was appalled when I told her. She doesn't like her mom already."

"That didn't take long."

"By the end of this, she might need the superduper jumbo word search. Ha, ha?"

We arrived at Pat's parent's. He smiled at me and lifted his armpit.

"Arf!" he said.