Washing the Brockton Off

And I'm not talking about the Paddy Kelly Road Race, because as always, that was great. This post falls into a category not listed in my top ten, because as always, I was being nice. This one is a "My life is great, but I'm complaining anyway" post. Not that something like that has ever been done before...

So this morning I had an appointment at the eye doctor. I've grown a bit tired of not being able to see a fucking thing clearly (you look great by the way). About eight years ago I got my first pair of glasses, just for reading, and then I upgraded them a few years after that. I'd always gone to a big mega-optometrist place on Staniford Street, near the Garden. When I worked in Woburn, it was pretty convenient, as I could just walk to Mishawum, pay the (in those days) $5 round trip to North Station, and zone out/nap for 25 minutes each way. I don't work there anymore though, so now it's either drive, and pay outrageous daytime parking rates, or take the CR to Back Bay, switch to the Orange Line, go to North Station, and hike it from there. These days that's about a $13 proposition, almost as bad as parking. Forget about the loss of time.

Now here we are. I go in to the city for all my medical care. If you've ever spent much time in one of the Brockton hospitals, then you know why. Or maybe you don't, because until I started going in to the city, I thought all hospitals were that bad. But this was just the eye doctor. Surely I could get my eyes checked locally, right? How hard could it be? I drive right by a place every day. I tried it.

Truth be told, the doctor and the rest of the staff seemed fine. I have just as much confidence in them as I do the overpriced factory care at OCB. The problem was the other patients. Holy fucking shit. Ten minutes in the waiting room and I felt like I needed a shower. In fairness, there were a few "normal" people, dressed for work, and behaving themselves. Then we had an army of screaming brats with LED's blinking on their snow boots running around like wild somethings while their oblivious parents sat complaining about needing a cigarette (after all, they'd been in there ten minutes too). Then there were the clothes. If it weren't for a teenager (clad in pink sweatpants, with a pink Sox hoodie, and pink sneakers) surfing the net on her Iphone, I wouldn't have known what decade it was. One old dude (by old I mean about 75) was there escorting his mother (who was a ringer for the old mother on the Golden Girls, about 90, probably...). This guy was smooth, with a leather jacket and snakeskin (I'm not shitting you) boots to go with his snow-white, styled after Hulk Hogan hair and moustache. He also had with him his younger (like 60) girlfriend in a poncho whom he could not seem to keep his hands off, much to her delight. Mom was unfazed.

Those were just the also rans though. After a minute in walks a low life and his unfortunate wife and kid. Reeks of Marlboros, drinking a large Dunkin Donuts coffee, black boots untied, flannel fucking plaid overshirt, greasy baseball hat, equally greasy hair and beard, straight out of a Lynard Skynard rejects convention. He pisses and moans about every piece of paperwork his wife (or whatever) politely asks him to sign. He gets grizzly faced, sighing like they want him to give up a kidney or something. His kid is behaving ok, and looks over at the Boston Herald the guy is reading (probably just looking at the pictures, and I mean the guy, not the kid) and says "what's that?" The guy says "a dog show." "Is that like a car show?" Ahh, yes. Now I know why he was so engaged in raising his child...

Junior is better behaved than the other kids in there, but tugs Dad's leg one too many times and the guy shouts "knock it off or I'll smack you" or something like that. Real tough guy. The kid was about three. Oh yes, this was Brockton. Thankfully, I get called out back and that's that. When I leave I see a silver Monte Carlo with a "3" bumper sticker on it. Gee, I wonder who that belongs to? Thanks for reading, I'm hitting the shower.