GEORGE AT ASDA
by Sebastian Wallace

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sebastian_wallace@yahoo.co.uk
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His name didn't mean much to me so I called him into my consulting room with my usual indifference.  I didn't take a lot of notice of his age or any of the other details on his medical card.

Just his name.  George Taylor.

I suppose I was expecting some overweight middle-aged bloke – an accountant or something similar – who wanted me to take a look at his haemorrhoids or to talk about the problems he was having with his prostate.

So when he walked into the room I saw who he was I must have looked pretty shocked.  He looked pretty surprised himself.

He was about my age – thirtyish – with short brown hair and a couple of days growth of stubble.  His short sleeved short revealed the thick, muscular arms of someone used to doing manual work.  For some reason, he just wasn't the sort of man I would have expected to be called George Taylor.

That wasn't the cause of my shock, though.  And no doubt it wasn't my own appearance that was the cause of his own look of surprise.

You see, we'd met before.  And under very different circumstances.

He sat down and said, before I could compose myself enough to offer him my usual bland greeting, "Nice of you to see me, Dr Wallace.  I usually see Dr Jones, next door, but I gather he's on a course."

I nodded.  "Ah... yeah..."

"There's still a few things you doctors have to learn, then...?"  He threw me a broad grin.

I wasn't sure how to respond.  "Er... I suppose so..."

I looked down at his card.  "So... er... Mr Taylor... what can I – "

"Call me George... or Geordie.  Geordie's my nickname," he cut in.

I nodded.  "Okay.  So what's the problem?"

He fell silent and just stared at me.  Perhaps he was making sure that I was really who he thought I was; perhaps he was trying to figure out how to proceed.

At length he said, "If you'd rather I saw someone else, it's not a problem.  I wouldn't make a big deal about it."

He knew who I was all right.

I shook my head.  "I don't mind.  I don't mind treating you as a GP if you're comfortable with that.  If you're not, I can probably arrange for you to see Dr Callaghan later this afternoon..."

He shrugged.  "It makes no difference to me, to be honest.  It's not like I'd be self conscious about having you examine me..."

He chuckled and I felt myself blush at little.

I'd met George in the clothing section of our local Asda a couple of months earlier.  I'd seen him in the supermarket on previous occasions – we obviously both chose to do our shopping on Friday evenings – but we hadn't spoken or even acknowledged one another until that particular night.

I was there with my wife, Melissa, and George was with a woman who was presumably his.  Melissa and I were alternating between filling and pushing the trolley and looking after the pram containing our baby daughter; George and his wife were similarly occupied with their shopping trolley and a pushchair containing a small boy.

As we walked through the clothing department, I spotted a pair of jeans that looked reasonable and mentioned to Melissa that I might try them on.

"Haven't you got enough jeans?" she snapped.

"The last pair – my only pair – ended up with creosote on them, if you remember.  That was last year."

"Well, I was under the impression we came here to get the week's groceries," she snorted, pushing the trolley and the pram towards the grocery