CHRISTMAS EVE AT THE POLE

By Peter Murchie
Contact the author via the editor by e-mail at christopher.johnstone@ntlworld.com

Twas the night before Christmas and all round the surgery... mayhem! I’d kennelled the huskies and stepped into a seething waiting room. Flushed ear tips and the frenzied sibilation of hat bells told me that all was not well. I shook my head at this unedifying and wearyingly regular Christmas Eve spectacle. It was the first night of the elvin trades fortnight and the workshop klaxon had barely sounded. Yet here they all were already, seeking immediate treatment for such emergencies at toy maker’s thumb, candyflossosis and tinsel fume fever. Then, it would be off to gorge themselves on mentholated waybread and pine needle beer, before tumbling into some crevasse or coming second best in a dispute with a marauding Action Man. I don’t know what old Tolkein tamped into that pipe, but it must have been good to conjure up all that fair sylvan grace from the reality of this diminutive rabble. Still, let Husky-docs worry about that – one more surgery and I was headed south for the holidays. Just a two-hour sleigh ride and I’d be there. Hula girls, palm trees, pina coladas. See balmy Shetland in the winter, the travel agent had said and I couldn’t wait.

I picked through the tinkling of elves, pointedly ignored irate knee jabs. The next two hours stretched out in front of me like a stripy candy stick. First, an acutely self-conscious anthropomorphism with severe rhinophyma. I gazed longingly at the second hand as he crossed his hooves and started bleating about being excluded from reindeer games. I did sympathise, but what could I do? Head down, I pulled like a Hornby in a plasticene landscape and dealt with the next few patients. Thankfully it was mostly simple stuff. A subutteo player with a strained base and then a case of puppet impotence. I gave the second a little white lie leaflet, and sent him off to the surgery carpenter, Geppetto, to have the appropriate adjustments. Mrs Puppet would have few complaints now provided he stayed out of politics. I was running on time now, a gluwein break a distinct possibility. Then, as luck wouldn’t have it, a bloody toadstool addict. Round about the gingerbread houses we skipped till finally the little hobgoblin scampered out – his little yellow eyes glinting merrily – with a script for button mushrooms (endorsed consume in grotto) and a Did Not Attend for the Fungus Problem Service. I’d probably next see him in the sick bay, newly winched out of a disused cordial well. As even more luck would have it, the sick bay was where I was headed now – to pick some lead shot out of Aled Jones’ backside. I’d warned him about soaring over snow dusted open farmland at this time of year.

I left Aled singing my praises and looked at my watch, I had a quick nibble – mmm Cadbury’s – 20 minutes to go. My thoughts turned to sleigh hostesses, departure grottoes. I wandered back to my room and dug in for the final push. Tinkle, tinkle, tinkle went my desk phone. “Oh, St Nicholas” I profaned. “What now!” I asked abruptly of Tinkerbell, the receptionist. “I’m really sorry doctor, but are you able to do an emergency medical?” “An emergency medical” I spluttered, “On Christmas Eve!?” This was too much. “Donner and Blitzen!” I screamed. “Dasher it all! I’m supposed to be at the sleighport in forty minutes!”

“It’s a real emergency, doctor” she said pleadingly, wings whirring in the background. I relented, ire softened by her fairy charms. “Send them through.” I sighed. “Thanks doctor, he’s got all the paper work.”

I sank back and waited. Minutes passed, there was a faint regular jingling sound but no one appeared. Irritated, I opened my door and beheld an empty waiting room. Puzzled and frankly annoyed, I went to call Tinkerbell. As I walked to my chair the jingling intensified. Suddenly, there was a tremendous whooshing sound and soot billowed from my fireplace. A large corpulent man clad entirely in red and with a white bushy beard stepped from beneath my mantelpiece. “Merry Christmas” he chortled. “Ohh!! Hello Mr Claus” I said, somewhat taken aback. “I would have thought you’d have been well on your way by now.”

“Well doctor, I’m afraid I’ve been most remiss. I’ve forgotten to renew my Heavy Sleigh Vehicle Licence. Do you think you can fit me in?” he chuckled proffering the forms. “You know what those Icelandic traffic police are like. Utter bastards!” he chortled “and children everywhere are depending on me.”

I was astonished. Forty minutes to get to the sleighport and the whole of child kind depending on me. I hadn’t encountered a situation like this since I sat the written paper of my MRCGP. “There’s not a second to lose!” I exclaimed, seizing Santa’s forms. Santa sat in the patient’s chair. I quickly scanned the forms. Then, I leapt onto his knee and got to work.

“Number one, beard” I said. “Hee, hee it tickles” I said placing a large tick in the consumerate box. “Number two, peak flow” I said reaching for the meter. Santa applied it to his lips “HO HO HO!!!!” bellowed Santa. “85 litres” I quavered weakly, waiting until my reverberating head settled before marking up the form. “Number three, eyesight” I said indicating the left window and asking what he could see. Santa peering said “A jolly good boy in Baltimore, helping an old lady across the road. He’ll be getting lots of toys.” I indicated the right window. “Tommy Sheridan!” Santa exclaimed sharply. “Well he’ll be getting no toys at all this year! And if he keeps that up I don’t give a figgy pudding for his eye-sight!” We continued in like vein, Santa passing all of the medical tests in turn, though I did struggle with his lead underpants when checking for hernias. Knows his epidemiology, I’ll certainly say that for him. Then the lifestyle questions. “Smoking?” I enquired. “Only when they’ve forgotten to put the fire out!” he said merrily. “Alcohol?” I asked.

“About 15-20” said FC.

“15-20 units?” I asked.

“15-20 billion units” he said. “But I only drink on one day of the year.”

“Fair enough” I said, checking the box.

“I hope you’re not going to ask about mince pies!?” said Santa.

We were both still laughing at this last quip, as paper work in order, I waved him off up the chimney stack, and he jingled off into the misty firmament. It was a foggy Christmas night – but a little brainwave of my own had helped Santa on his way. And was probably going to mean one less acutely unhappy reindeer from me to see on my return from the tropics. I nipped home, changed into sandals and beach shirt and flung some suntan lotion in my case. Shetland here I come, I thought gleefully as I hailed a sleighport bound tonka taxi.

Other hoolet online articles by Peter Murchie can be found at:
hoolet edition 49 - Sandyjim Saves the Day
hoolet edition 48 - And The Winner Is...
hoolet edition 47 - A Christmas Caper
hoolet edition 46 - The Edinburgh Festival
hoolet edition 45 - Struck By Enlightenment
hoolet edition 44 - The Pendleton Code
hoolet edition 43 - Christmas Eve at The Pole
hoolet edition 42 - An Unexpected Reunion
hoolet edition 41 - The Complementary Garage
hoolet edition 40- Up General Practice!!
hoolet edition 39- Ten Years From Now
hoolet edition 38 - Finlay and the Contract Summit
hoolet edition 37 - Johnny the Bow and the New Contract
hoolet edition 36 - Science For Football's Sake
hoolet edition 35 - Evidence-Based Golfing
hoolet edition 34 - Dr. Marlowe

hoolet is the magazine of RCGP Scotland. It is supported intellectually, financially and emotionally by RCGP Scotland.

This issue maintained by Robert Hallam.