Doorman Smooth

"I had stitches on my hand once," she said. "You wanna see?"

I rolled my eyes. "What, your scar?"

"That's the thing! I don't even have a scar!"

"Okay, I'll bite. How'd you manage to get stitches without having a scar?"

"It's a great story," she said, beaming. "I was sitting in the emergency room, hysterical crying..."

"What do you mean by that?" I interrupted.

"By what?"

"'Hysterical crying'. Don't you mean you were 'crying hysterically?' Why does everyone from New York insist upon saying they were 'hysterical crying?'"

"Huh?"

"Go ahead with your story. I'm riveted."

She stared at me emptily. "Oh. Well, so I was in the emergency room hysterical crying, when this, like, guy comes up, and he's like, 'What's the matter?' And I'm like, y'know, still all crying and shit, so he tells the nurse he wants to take me in back."

"In back for what?" I asked, cocking an unthreaded eyebrow.

"Oh, like he was a doctor and shit."

Christ. "I've heard you could find those in an emergency room on occasion."

"So lis-sen. The story gets better."

"You're kidding," I said. "Is that even possible?"

"No, for real. It turns out that the guy who was talkin' to me was the best hand and face doctor in Manhattan."

"What the hell is a hand and face doctor? Like, a plastic surgeon, like?"

"Yeah!" she replied. "And, like, he wanted to work on my hand, 'cause I was all crying and shit."

"Hysterical crying?"

"I was scared! My hand was all bloody and shit."

"And so," I said, "the best plastic surgeon in New York put stitches in your hand?"

"Yes! How lucky was I that he was there?"

"Sounds like it."

"He was so great," she said. "It didn't even hurt, and it didn't leave a scar!"

"Wow. The best plastic surgeon in New York. That's awesome. Why didn't you have him do some other work while you had him?"

"Excuse me?"

Did I really just say that?