The Talk(s)

  My appointment today consisted of X-Ray and Ultrasound to track the progress or location or existence of kidney stones, a routine I undergo every six or nine months or so.
   The woman at the check-in window of the X-Ray Department asked me if I had parked in the newly opened Parking Garage.  I said I tried to avoid them because of their association with too many crime shows where bad things happened there.  She laughed in agreement, and assured me that this garage was very nice, beautiful I think she said.  The other woman behind the window, having overheard the remarks, told me that there was a new scam, that drivers were finding  a piece of paper on their rear  windows as they went to leave the parking garage, and when they got out of their car to retrieve the paper, the perpetrator would get in, and steal the car, and usually the women's purses that they would have left on the seat.  The first woman handed me a leaflet extolling the merits of the new parking garage.  The other woman said the scam had not happened there.
    The X-Ray technician showed up to call me in for my procedure, a single and simple  X-ray.  A convivial fellow, he asked me where I was from, and when he heard Valley Falls he said he used to have a job as a vendor to the businesses there, but hadn't been to the area in many years.  I asked if the company was Desormeau.  I used to accept deliveries for them in my childhood clerking days. I didn't mention that though, being fairly certain that at the time, he would have been yet to be born.  Yes, he said, though the name had been changed to Tri-City Vending Company.  I remembered that too, though I didn't say so.  What was the name, he asked of the big white building with the wide front porch, and the place that used to sell pizza, and some place called Keyes in Schaghticoke.  I told him most of those places had burned down.  
   As it happened, there was a delay.  He had to change the battery in the X-ray machine, and while he was doing so, he told me that his brother was about 3 inches taller than his own apparent 6 feet 2 or so, and weighed 50 pounds more, and had suffered a kidney stone which broke him down into tears of agony. He himself placed never having a kidney stone high on his bucket list.  He viewed my film, and said "nothing jumped out" at him.
     On to a brief wait before the session with the Ultra-Sound technician.  She  was young and looked fit, but she had to work around her ailing shoulder.  Because of the constant position of her arm that her job called for, she had torn her rotator cuff.  She'd gone through physical therapy, which helped somewhat. She said if they had told her about this occupational hazard, she would have trained for another position.
   In a certain way, I find it almost gratifying that people I don't know seem willing to engage in  conversation with apparent disregard of age, and without semblance of patronizing.  The "conversation" is pretty much one-sided, but I don't mind.