More Fun in the New Year

"Spider Pig!  Spider Pig!  Does whatever a Spider Pig does....".
The doctor abruptly stopped looking at my gnarled finger and answered his cell phone, bringing his interesting ringtone to a halt.

I looked at my hand.  They had unwrapped and un-splinted it, allowing me to see the effects of the surgery in their full glory.  It looked like a shriveled mummy hand, dry and orange-ish with marks all over its skin from the cast.  My pinky finger was covered with black bruises and the big star, my broken ring finger, still shifted unnaturally to the right.  It was hugely swollen and two large wires stuck out of it right below the knuckle.  I couldn't move either finger.

Alec's mom and sister came to visit us for a few days.  On their last evening here, they treated us to an expensive dinner in Buckhead, Atlanta's version of uptown.  As we were being seated, I heard a really loud burp from the table next to ours.  I was kind of shocked, this wasn't just any burp, it was like a frat boy challenge. I felt like I was about to start laughing and tried to keep my eyes from the source:  an older man that was sitting with a female companion.  Both seemed completely nonplussed.

The doctor returned, without explanation. 
"Hmm, it has rotated," he said, refering to the odd angle of my finger.  The 'Peanuts" theme music started roaring from his phone this time.
"Is that your ringtone?!" I asked, loudly.  He looked at me without smiling and walked out of the room, while answering his phone again.
I examined my hand some more and thought of the five hundred dollar bill the doctor had submitted to my insurance company for my first office visit.  I began to wonder if this little man could answer his phone on his own time.
He returned again, without explanation.
"Well, what I'm going to do," he said, grabbing my broken finger, wires and all,
"is push it this way," he continued, shoving my finger into a straighter position,
"and tape it to this!" he finished, splinting and taping my broken finger to my pinky.
Electric waves of pain shot through my hand and arm while he completed his project.
"You have a low pain threshold" he stated critically, while re-wrapping my mummy hand.
"You have an ugly phone and a stupid ringtone" I thought back.
"You are very anxious about this hand" he stated in the same disparaging tone, after informing me that I was losing mobility in all of the fingers on my left hand and would need to do exercises in order to avoid having a permanent claw for a hand.  

The food was delicious.  As I took the second bite of my salad, I heard another cacophonous burp. Alec's sister and I locked eyes.  Who the fuck does that?  He let out another, mini-burp that would be extraordinary for a normal person.  I couldn't believe what I was hearing.
"Oh my God," Alec's sister said lowly, "if he doesn't stop, I don't know, I might have to say something to the waiter!". 

I raced back to school to teach my next class.  My hand was throbbing.  I didn't know it then, but it was only going to get worse.

"I hate to say it, Ms. Wagner, but I think you're going to end up with a mangled hand" Deandre stated solemnly, shaking her head back and forth, after her class asked me about my afternoon's events. 
"That man's crazy".