Dr. Goldovitz and a Full Rack o' Ribs

Yesterday morning, Doctor Goldovitz had Plotnik take off all his clothes to receive his first Entire Body check. Now that Plottie has had one basal cell carcinoma removed from his face, he has to look out for more. This checkup will have to be repeated every year from here on out.

"Lift up your scrotum," Dr. Goldovitz said, "so I can check underneath."

"You can get skin cancer under your balls?" said Plotnik.

"Turn around and bend over," he said.

"There too?" Plotnik said.

Apparently basal cell carcinomas have no pride, they'll grow anywhere. But Plottie is clean this time. He received his lecture about wearing sun block, which he is sure to ignore most of the time, and then he got to go home.

Plotnik likes Dr. Goldovitz. He says "Yes" or "No," unlike Plotnik's regular doctor Dr. I Dunno Wadda YOU Think?

The thing is, The Great Plotnik is a Southern California kid. He grew up with everyone telling him the sun was the greatest healer on Earth, and he still kind of believes it, even though the sun is taking a lot of heat lately. Heh heh, get it?

No, it is. Now everyone's afraid of the sun, and at the same time they're afraid of their food and their water. Food, water and sun, scary. This doesn't add up.

But Plotnik doesn't want any more skin cancers, even though, as cancers go, this is the one to get. So he asked Dr. Goldovitz the obvious question.

"Do you wear sun screen when you go out?"

"I wear a hat," Dr. Goldovitz said.

Yeah, right. How are you going to tell your dermatologist, a man who looks kind of like you do but has less hair, that wearing a hat when you walk down the street marks you as an aging baldie? The only people who wear hats outdoors are either gangsters or old Jews. You can almost always tell the difference.

In truth, Plotnik does not believe the skin doctor about avoiding sunlight any more than he believes the dentist about flossing three times a day or Dr. I Dunno Wadda YOU Think? about cholesterol.

(Plotnik has good good cholesterol and good bad cholesterol, but his bad cholesterol could be gooder than it is, but only because they changed the guidelines last year. "We need to get this under 100 now," Dr. I Dunno says.)

("Why?" says Plotnik.)

("I Dunno. Wadda You...")

("I think this makes no sense. It was fine last year and it hasn't changed but it's not fine any more this year? I think it's just numbers," Plotnik says.)

("OK," says Dr. I Dunno. )

("What do you think about wearing sun screen?" Plotnik asks him.)

("Just wear a hat," he says.)

Yesterday, on the way home from the dermatologist, Plotnik stopped at Lilly's BBQ for a combo platter that he and Duck could share for lunch. Ribs, chicken, links, beans, half hot and half regular sauce, yum.

While waiting for his bbq, Plottie picked up a newspaper called The Saint Plotniko Post. It's a black weekly. Plot read an article by a man named Benjamin X. Benjamin X believes the downfall of black men is white women. When Obama defeated Hillary, Benjamin X thought Obama's problems were over, but now comes Sarah Palin and the Alaskan Winkie is throwing a monkey wrench into everything. We feel your pain, Benjamin X.

There was a large man in the bbq shack, also waiting for his food. He ordered a full rack of ribs, a full order of links, and two large sides, one of beans and one of potato salad.

"Tell me you're not going to eat all that food yourself," Plotnik laughed.

"Yep," the man said, without a smile, as if to say "What the Hell do you THINK I'm going to do with this food?"

Plot thought about that rack of ribs, and all those hot links, and then he saw his puny few rib tips and a few slices of hot links and a little bbq chicken. And the thing is, this guy will probably live to be 100, won't wear a hat, won't get skin cancer under his balls and won't spend ten seconds worrying about cholesterol. He probably won't go to a doctor until he's ready to die. Then he'll go home and eat that whole rack of ribs. Life is so unfair.