Morning thoughts

So, I am at the doctor's office but it isn't an office. It is the screened in porch in the front of his house. I see no evidence of any doctor equipment. Just a big wooden desk, toys on the floor and succulents by the window. Right outside the window in the patio they are selling tacos and cokes. They have a barbeque grill set up and the smell of cooking meat is coming in the window. It is making me hungry. People are talking, eating and milling around, enjoying the morning.

They can see in the window and I can watch them but I am focused on my feet. They aren't interested in me, only their food.  My toes are burning. They have been burning for weeks. The elderly doctor is wearing a wife beater T-shirt with writing on the front. It is too old for me to be able to read. Plus it is in Spanish. His helper is a little girl. Maybe four years old. She is playing with a strange toy nearby as I show the doctor my feet. I am wearing flip flops, just for that purpose.

He puts his stethoscope on my ankles and listens to the blood running through me. He barely speaks English and my Spanish is just as bad as his English. We use our hands a lot to communicate. He didn't ask me my name and I don't remember his. I just saw his name on the front of his house and that he was a doctor. So I walked in. After checking my ankles, he manages to tell me that I have poor circulation.

 He writes a prescription on his pad and has me write my name on it.  Then he rips it off and hands it to me. I ask what I owe him. He thinks for awhile. Quite awhile, as if no one has asked him that question for a long time. Maybe he usually doesn't charge his patients. Maybe he has no patients. Maybe he is retired, like me.

 Finally he hesitantly says, a hundred and fifty pesos, as if that might be too much money. In American money, it is around eight dollars. I look into my small change purse. I only have a two hundred peso note. I hand it to him. He doesn't have any money. He turns to his helper and tells her to go get cinquenta pesos for him. She goes outside and comes back with a cinco peso coin. The doctor and I laugh. She hasn't learned her numbers yet. He sends her out again for the cinquenta peso bill.

After she returns with the cinquenta peso note for me, I thank her and the doctor. They both smile at me. I walk outside and consider having a taco but walk home instead. It is starting to rain. I don't want to be caught in the rain. I forgot to bring my umbrella.

This is not a dream sequence. This is my life in Mexico.