Gordon

I don't want to tell Gordon about his brother-in-law. I've got to say something soon, but don't know how to go about it without hurting Gordon's feelings.

Gordon has been a patient for five years. He has a chronic shoulder condition that led to three operations before he discovered chiropractic. The surgeries didn't solve his problem. Adjustments have helped more than anything, and we both feel that chiropractic first would have enabled him to avoid the operations. He comes in about once a month now. He referred his mother and father and they are all good patients.

The trouble started a year ago when his brother-in-law (B-I-L) graduated from chiropractic college and opened his office in a northern state. Gordon and his family go visit him now and then and when Gordon returns he has to tell me all about it.

"You ought to see the new machine my brother-in-law has. It tells him what vitamins people need."

"How does that work, Gordon?"

"You just hold this thing in one hand and, in the other hand, you hold different bottles of vitamins."

"What happens? Bells ring, lights flash?"

"No. He watches this dial."

"Amazing," I said. "The wonders of modern science."

"Yeah. You ought to get one of those machines. He found out that I was low on zinc and I needed vitamin C, vitamin A, and B-12."

"He sells them to you?"

"Uh huh. Mom too. She needed a whole bunch of stuff. So did dad."

I wondered if there was any possibility that B-I-L believed his own machine.

I don't.

Gordon said, "You ever see one of those roller tables?"

I had seen one of those tables at a convention several years ago. They had a beautiful girl laying on one. She had a skimpy bikini and the rollers would raise and lower her pelvis. I would have watched longer but my wife was with me.

Gordon said, "He worked on dad, too. He showed me the way dad's legs were. His left leg was one and one-half inches short before he started. After he was through his legs were perfectly even."

"I sure am impressed," I said.

Gordon's father does have a short leg. He suffered a compound fracture 40 years ago. I wonder if B-I-L believed his own leg check.

I don't.

Gordon and his family are going to see B-I-L over the Christmas holidays, and I'm thinking of sending up a present for the good doctor. A bottle of arsenic perhaps. He can hold it in one hand and see if the machine wants him to take it.

I do.