The Puppy in the Waiting Room
I don’t know if I really remember some of the stories my parents would tell about my naughty or my endearing childhood antics, or if I’ve heard them so often I think I do. But I remember how we found Fluffy in the waiting room as if it happened yesterday.
When I was growing up we lived over the store – actually over my father’s office. Nowadays my dad would be called an internist or a primary care physician, but in those days he was just a GP. In fact he was the kind of GP who could take out your appendix or deliver your baby, and he actually made house calls carrying his iconic black medical bag. Hearing he was a doctor, someone once asked my father what his speciality was. “The skin and its contents.” he replied. (See GP)
My dad’s office was on the first floor of our house, and the front parlor served as a waiting room you entered directly from the street. My father’s dentist friend Ben shared the office space and their patients shared the waiting room. (See Laughing Gas and the Chestnut Tree)
One day both Ben and my dad had busy schedules and the waiting room was full. Later they both remembered the little dog curled up on the rug, but each assumed it belonged to one of the other man’s patients.
In fact we never learned how that collarless puppy got into the waiting room – if she was a stray who wandered in from the street when the door was open, or if someone thought a doctor’s waiting room was a good place to abandon an unwanted pet.
In any case, when office hours were over and all the patients were gone, the dog was still in the waiting room, and so my father carried her upstairs.
“Would you like to keep the little ball of fluff?” he asked me, gently placing a warm white and brown puppy in my arms.
But Fluffy was licking my face and I couldn’t speak, so my mother settled the matter.
“The answer is yes.” she said.
– Dana Susan Lehrman
Dana Susan LehrmanThis retired librarian loves big city bustle and cozy country weekends, friends and family, good books and theatre, movies and jazz, travel, tennis, Yankee baseball, and writing about life as she sees it on her blog World Thru Brown Eyes!
www.WorldThruBrownEyes.com
Lovely, Dana. The best way to get a loving pet! She sounds like she loved you from the moment you two met.
Yes Betsy, and she was such a good dog … except when she chewed up one of my mother’s alligator shoes!
What a beautiful memory, Dana. It makes me nostalgic for simpler times.
Yes Laurie, our childhoods were much simpler, after school we went out to play – no arranged play dates, no video games, no cell phones!
How sweet, Dana, and simple. I love your description of living above your father’s office. My pediatrician had the same arrangement, his office being on the first floor of a large house in East Orange, New Jersey. I always thought the yellow and green wallpaper in the waiting room was garish, even as a small kid.
Thanx Marian.
Fascinating how we remember little things from childhood like the garish wallpaper in a pediatrician’s office! I wonder if that means you shunned wallpaper thereafter?!?
Fun story, Dana, and what a mystery about how the dog got there! My father was also a GP with his office attached to our house (not the whole first floor, just part of it), but nothing so interesting ever happened to us.
Yes Suzy, it was a mystery. It was Easter time and my parents thought the puppy may have been given to someone as an Easter gift and then was unwanted, but we’ll never know.
Sadly Fluffy was hit by a car a few years later right in front of our house as she was running towards me, that’s another childhood memory but an awful one.
The picture is fantastic–is that you and Fluffy? A kid and a puppy, made for each other. You had wise parents.
Thanx Khati, yes I had wise parents, but no, I had no old photos of me and Fluffy, the photo you see is gratis the Internet!
(I do confess I was a cutie, but a dark-haired cutie!)
Dee, your sweet, touching story makes me sorely miss the days when we had GPs. I’m not sure they still exist in CA, at least not where I live…every doctor is a specialist. I would bet your dad might have also made house calls…remember those?
Thanx Bebe, yes indeed he made house calls with his little black bag!
First episode of the series ‘How I met my Pet Canine.’
Good Kevin, how did you meet yours?
I still love this story, Dana. They say that dogs find their humans and Fluffy certainly found you (but I confess…not the alligator shoes!).
Thanx – or thanx again Betsy!
Wonderful story! I love the way it builds up to cuddling the puppy and taking it upstairs. Dogs are so very special to us now. If only they could vote 🙂
Thanx Carol. Fluffy was the only dog in my life, after that it’s been a succession of wonderful felines.
And speaking of voting, a friend gave me a magnet for my fridge that says, My cat is a Democrat.
(Another friend had a kitchen towel a few years ago that said, My dog would make a better president.
I think you know during whose tenure that was.)
Such a sweet story, Dana. Too bad this type of medicine has vanished.
Yes Laurie , my father was an old-fashioned GP who really knew and cared wholeheartedly for his patients. They in turn all loved him, even one puppy dog who had the luck to end up in his waiting room!