As I recover from a respiratory illness struck upon me by Satan, my mind wanders back to the last time I was this sick.

It’s January 5, 2020. Covid-19 is rearing its ugly head, but we’re a couple of months away from sheltering in place. I’m in the waiting room of Immediate Care with a fierce cold, sore throat and first-ever case of laryngitis. After days of suffering, I need antibiotics or enough oxycodone to euthanize myself.

A woman who looks to be in her seventies with steel-gray hair tightly curled to hug her head enters accompanied by what appears to be a Great Dane mix. He seems too bumbling to be an emotional support animal and too unruly to be a service dog, yet he sports a service dog vest. As she makes her way to the receptionist window, the dog lunges this way and that. I marvel at how this woman of rather short stature doesn’t get tossed off balance and face-plant onto the linoleum. After she checks in, she takes a seat on a chair to my right. The dog lies at her feet.

I love dogs and he appears to be a sweet one. I don’t particularly care if she’s scamming the service dog system by buying him a vest on the internet. If my dog Lucy wasn’t so nervous, I’d get her such a vest and take her everywhere with me. As it is, she panics whenever I try to coax her into walking outside her safety zone—a two-square block area around our immediate neighborhood.

A middle-aged woman enters and announces her name to the receptionist with the confidence of a great orator. If Tom Petty had a twin sister, she would look like this woman. She wears a black leather motorcycle jacket that pairs nicely with her skinny jeans and black leather boots. She sits on a chair to my left and starts making googly eyes at the service dog imposter. “Aren’t you just the cutest thing? Wouldn’t you like me to pet you? I bet you would, oh yes you would.”

The dog stands, tail wagging enthusiastically, whipping the legs of his owner who sweetly says, “I ask people to not encourage him to play. He needs to focus on his work.” She coaxes him to lie down again.

“I completely understand,” the other woman says, tossing her head backwards and slightly to the right to flip some hair behind her shoulders. “I’ve been an animal trainer all my life and have trained animals all over the world. The only animal I haven’t trained is an elephant.”

“Ah,” the dog owner draws this out, clearly impressed.

I want to ask if she’s trained a rhinoceros. Or a koala. Or a blue whale.

The world-renowned animal trainer waxes on about how her flair for animal training has sent her to Africa, China, and roadside zoos in Florida and Oklahoma.

The dog owner listens patiently before changing the subject. “I have dementia and Beavis is trained to help me recognize my roommate.”

The world-renown animal trainer narrows her eyes. “You don’t recognize your roommate?”

“When I get up each morning and see her in the living room drinking coffee, I think there’s a stranger in the house. After Beavis greets her, I know she’s okay. I also have a tendency to fall and he helps get me up.”

World-renown animal trainer gives an approving nod.

“Do you want me to show you how he does that?”

I want to shout, “Yes, please! Sweet Baby Jesus, please!” But I have laryngitis and the animal trainer urges her not to do it, putting the kibosh on what could possibly be the best entertainment I’ve had in ages.

A nurse calls my name and beckons me into an exam room. I don’t want to go. I want to stay and continue watching this fascinating weirdness.

After the doctor enters the exam room, I croak out plenty of reasons why I need antibiotics—fevered, blowing yellow snot, sick of being sick, needing a miracle, but since I’m not religious I’m not likely to get one.

“It’s a virus,” he says, flatly. “Antibiotics won’t help.”

I want to put him in a head lock and give him noogies until he surrenders to my demand.

“There are 27 viruses going around right now.”

I suspect he made that number up, but who am I with laryngitis and a mere Bachelor’s degree in Anthropology to argue? As disappointed as I am, I leave knowing that the clinic visit wasn’t a total bust—at least I have the service dog/world renown animal trainer experience to give me chuckles through the miserable days ahead.