Welcome, Welcome, Welcome To My Party!

RC:  Hi, Dr. Cuddles! I was sad to hear that you’re closing your office after so many years of helping deeply troubled people.

Dr C: Yes, yes. But it’s time to take a break and uncover my authentic self, much like a gardener puts on gloves and goes out to the garden in the springtime to pick up soggy piles of old leaves only to reveal… grubs.

RC: But you’re Dr. Cuddles, psychotherapist extraordinaire, you must know who you are. If you don’t know who you are, how can your patients ever know who they are? Besides, what else will you do?

Dr C: I do have other interests in life…

RC: Like what?

Dr C: Literature, drinking, running with the bulls, pornography…

RC: Porn?

Dr C: Ah, vintage porn. I collect vintage porn. Nothing past 1970.

RC: Oh, in that case, cool! Well, I just wanted to stop by and say, hey, thanks for fixing my brain. Those were three intense years, weren’t they?

Dr C: I have a confession to make. I’m going into therapy myself. It’s going to be intense and scouring. I’m also going to learn how to camp.

RC: Oh, Dr. Cuddles, I’d have been happy to take you camping, provided we were in separate tents.

Dr C: But I wouldn’t have been able to stop myself from crawling into your tent. I’m afraid you wouldn’t have been safe, my dear, not one bit.

RC: Oh.

Dr C: Yes, it’s time to craft a new me. I shall rise up like a phoenix from the ashes of Dr. Oliver Cuddles’ old, muddled and off-kilter persona.

RC: Maybe, I don’t know, you could just get a new shirt. Something not quite so sun faded. And pants. I never could undersand how you wore those pants in the middle of August. Corduroy, I mean. And the house slippers are a nice touch for around your office but remember that time I saw you waiting in line for that movie, in the snow? Everyone thought you were crazy with those slippers on. What movie was it?

Dr C: Can I offer you a tumbler of rum? Let’s drink to old times…

RC: OK, I guess… Thanks… Woah, that’s enough. Do you have any mixer?

Dr C: What’s mixer?

RC: Uh, Diet Coke? Coke? Orange juice, I guess?

Dr C: To the heady days of psycoanalysis! To breakthroughs!

RC: To breakthroughs! To breaking the waves!

Dr C: To Ayn Rand and VC Andrews, the hottest ladies of literature, now gone. Let’s pour out some rum for them.

RC: Uh, OK… Dr. Cuddles? You should probably take a rest between shots.

Dr C: I can be sober when I’m dead!

RC: OK, it is your party.

Dr. C: Kiss me! Kiss me!

RC: Ick, no, Dr. Cuddles. I can’t. You know I’m married and you know I have a deep fear of gray, cottony toupees.

Dr. C: Don’t leave me hanging.

RC: I’m going to go now. I think some other people want to talk to you. Great cookies, by the way. Do you think it would be OK if I took your collection of vintage Highlights For Children mags from the waiting room?

Dr. C: Take them, take them, just don’t leave me here like this. Kiss me! Hug me! Roll about on the floor with me.

RC: I’ll see you around. Maybe at the movies… God, get up off the floor!