Calamity Jayne Goes to College Read Online Free PDF Page B

Reporting, I decided I'd go with Exam Room A next. But I'd knock, too--just
     in case some poor soul had her heels propped in a set of stirrups with some white-coated doctor-type between her legs. Ugh.
    I rapped on the door, prepared to issue my "I was looking for my grandmother, I am soo sorry" excuse to go along with my mortified apologies to all concerned, but received zero response. No doors flew open. No irritated
     nurses chided me. Nothing. I took a deep breath and turned the handle and opened the door. The light was off so I slipped
     in before I turned the switch on. When I turned around, I was surprised to see the room was starker than the hallways.
    Large and spacious, the room was absent of any touches of warmth and color. Not only was there no tile on the floor, but it
     looked almost like bare concrete, treated with a high-quality concrete sealer. I looked at the shiny examination table, totally
     stripped of pad, cover, or sheet, and frowned. The place looked like the kind of clinic where you'd find Dr. Death and his
     patients. Or Dr. Frankenstein. I sniffed. The place even had a fusty smell.
    I checked out the ceiling and squinted at the industrial-strength light fixtures with high-wattage output. The better to see you with, my dear, I thought. Frankly, I couldn't imagine any patient voluntarily stretching out on this shiny, hard, stainless steel examination
     table waiting for Dr. Coldfingers to declare, "Just relax. You may feel a bit of pressure here."
    I picked up a box of what looked like paper hair nets and made a face. Next to it was a box that looked like those funny little
     elastic slippers surgeons use to cover their shoes in the operating room or nurses stick on patients before a medical procedure.
     I looked around some more, opening a couple of the cupboards for curiosity's sake. Strange. For a doctor's office, you'd expect
     to find items relating to patient care. You know, those wide Popsicle sticks. Those long Q-tips they swab the back of your
     throat with for strep that make you gag big time. Gauze pads. Thermometers. Lubricating gel. That grotesque, cold, metallic
     speculum thingy. Eeeow!
    What kind of doctor's office was this?
    I prepared to open the door and leave when I noticed a white jacket hanging on a hook on the back. I looked around the room--like
     I do in the kitchen when I'm about to sneak in and slice off a hunk of frozen cookie dough from my folks' freezer--and pulled
     the white coat from the hook and slipped it on, curious as to how doctorish I'd look dressed in it. Okay, let's be honest
     here. Haven't you always wondered what you would look like as a doctor or surgeon? And how many of you gals have never taken a pillow and stuck
     it under your shirt to see how you would look eight months pregnant? And I am so not believing you've never pilfered those
     purple latex gloves and taken a few home to blow up and entertain yourself with later. Hmm. I thought as much.
    I grabbed one of the paper hair nets and, dropping my hood, stuck one on my flyaway (fly-far-far-away) hair. It took some
     doing to get my abundant mane stuck up under the net, but I managed. I bent over and pulled the slippers on over my Nikes,
     slipped my hands into a pair of purple latex gloves, and looked at my reflection in a mirror on the wall. I gasped, startled.
     My massive hair made my head look the size of a classroom globe. Or an alien's cranium. I looked about as medically savvy
     as Dr. Pepper.
    I flipped off the light and prepared to proceed to door number two. Maybe this was a veterinary clinic, I considered, thinking
     that could explain the lack of amenities. It could be one of those on-campus teaching facilities where veterinary science
     students received their hands-on-critter experience. Maybe instead of Dr. Death, we were talkin' Dr. Doolittle here. The possibility
     made me feel ever so much better.
    I straightened my white coat, opened the door, and stepped back out into the hall--and