12/12/2007 Horseback Preacher

The last thing I want to do is sound like a broken record here, but I met the strangest man at the Chiropractor's office today.

Fox was supposed to be napping so he was a screaming, toddling mess and made everyone really nervous. He has started screaming just like Janet Leigh lately. I was waiting for the doctor in the therapy room among the torturous, massage beds TRYING like hell to keep Fox from electrocuting himself and all of the sudden, out of the blue, the man who was lying on the vibrating/massage bed started talking about how he has two "special women" in his life. Because of the vibrations of the bed he sounded like Stephen Hawking's electro-generated voice, and kinda like William Burroughs cause he was REALLY old. Like 80s. He was describing how there was a(nother) lady in Texas who would call him and ask for help reaping hay, shoeing horses, or dealing with any horse-related issue, and how he was willing to drop everything and go. He said that people don't have "real friends" anymore and a "real friend" was a person who would come help you if they weren't already working. What he described was sort of like an elderly person's booty call, I guess.

People were coming and going in the room and I realized that I was the only person who had been there for the entire monologue, so I guess I was who he was addressing.(?) Oh, and Fox was screaming the WHOLE TIME and it would have appeared that I was only half-assedly listening to the guy, but he just kept talking.

FINALLY the receptionist came and told me to go to an exam room, and she wanted to carry Fox around for a while (I think for birth control reasons). So just as she took Fox the guy must have noticed my elastic-less socks and segued into another rant about how his $20 wool socks were the business. He wouldn't stop talking and I didn't know what to do. He removed his black cowboy boots to show me the thick foot pad on his socks, and just when I was on the brink of loosing my mind the receptionist saved me by returning my screaming son. We were somehow able to slip away into the room and close the door. As I was listening with my ear to the door I heard the man talking about how he was a preacher and that he preached from horseback! He has "circuits" that he goes on every so often and spreads the word! He has brought hundreds if not thousands to the Lord! He thinks that horses have something to do with God and started describing the many horse-themed religious programs in East Tennessee. I don't think anyone was in there listening to him because the receptionist was really busy, and I'm not positive he was aware of my presence till he sat up from the bed. And then it was like he was just talking to my quitter socks!

There is something magical about my Chiropractor's office.