FORE!

My wife, hearing me moan about my sore forearm all day yesterday after I'd played golf in the morning, insisted on taking me to our doctor. I don't know what she said to get me an appointment on such short notice, but she was an RN, so probably knows the "code."

Dr. Smith’s nurse, a chronically cheery girl who looked about 16, told me that my BP and pulse were good, "for your age," asked me what I was seeing the doctor about (my wife told them over the phone, so maybe she was just testing me), and said the doctor would be in "shortly."

My wife read her book and I perused the handouts on benign prostate hyperplasia, prostate cancer, irritable bowel syndrome, and breast cancer, which I learned men can also get. Next time I'll remember to bring my golf magazine.

When Dr. Smith strolled in he sat down at a laptop and asked, "So what seems to be the matter?" Don't these people talk to each other?

"I hurt my arm playing golf yesterday," I said.

"Well, you aren't going to get worker's comp for that," he said, with a chuckle. He typed something on his laptop. "Which arm?"

I pointed to my right, inner forearm. "I was trying to hit a punch shot," I told him. He typed something else, then came over to where I was sitting and grabbed my arm and squeezed. "Yow!" I said.

Dr. Smith ignored my expression of pain. "Bend your arm," he directed. "Raise it over your head." I grimaced as I raised my arm, just to show that I was trying. "Say ahh", Dr. Smith said.

I opened my mouth. The doctor said, "Just kidding."

"You have a strained  forearm muscle. Probably the flexor carpi radialis. It'll get better in a week or so," Dr. Smith said, going back to his laptop to type something, probably $1500.

"What should he do for it?" my wife asked. "Besides stop complaining," she added, unnecessarily, I thought.

Dr. Smith jotted something on a prescription pad. "He can take an anti-inflammatory, like Ibuprofen, or he can use this patch for local pain relief." He handed my wife the prescription.

"Any other complaints," Dr. Smith asked, edging towards the door.

"Just my golf game," I said.

"What did you shoot?" he asked.

"108," I said, rubbing my arm.

"Oh!" he said, coming back in the room and hurriedly scratching something on his prescription pad. "We better get a CAT Scan and MRI. Do some blood work. There's gotta be something more than a sore arm wrong with you."

He handed me the prescription and hurried out of  the room. I looked at the prescription. "What hen scratching," I said, and handed it to my wife, who, having been an RN was used to deciphering doctors’ writing.

"It says, Try Bridge," she said.

Midnight Golf

Jack felt bloated. Mexican food did that to him, to say nothing of the three beers he’d quaffed with dinner. Well, you couldn’t eat jalapeno poppers without beer -- just not possible.
Jack switched off the Golf Channel, slipped on his tennis shoes, and started for the door. “I’m going for a walk, Honey,” he shouted into the kitchen, where his wife, Doris, was finishing with the dishes.
“At this hour?” she shouted back.
Jack checked his watch. “It’s only ten.”
He was out the door before his wife could say anything else, like put out the trash.

Jack lived across the street from the Canyon Meadows golf course and liked to walk along the canal that ran through the course, reliving the good golf shots he’d made that week and going through the rotten luck he’d suffered as a result of the ‘golf gods’ exercising their perverse sense of humor at his expense.

Hmm, it is dark out here, Jack thought, as he picked his way carefully along the canal. As he made his way along the 9th Fairway he heard a kind of ‘click’ that sounded suspiciously like someone hitting a golf ball on the sweet spot. Can’t be, he thought. Too dark. But then he heard voices. Someone said, “Good shot.”
Jack edged closer to the fairway and, squinting into the dark, made out four shapes moving along the fairway. A thin layer of ground fog made them appear to glide.
Jack followed as the players walked to their next shots, all grouped nicely in the middle of the fairway. All the players were carrying their bags. From the players’ size and the timbre of their voices, they appeared to be men.
The players hit their approach shots, which arched high into the air and quickly disappeared from sight. And yet, the men congratulated each other with; “Nice shot!” and “Pin High!” and “Putting for a tweet.”

Jack walked up on the cart path that overlooked the 9th green and watched as the men took turns putting, demonstrating incredible accuracy given the conditions.
“Hey, you guys are something else,” he shouted, walking out of the shadows. The men turned and looked at him.
Jack walked down to the green and stood looking at the golfers. They studied him with undisguised interest.
“You guys always play golf at midnight?”
“It’s not midnight,” one of the men said.
“Hey, how about I join you?” Jack said. “Play the back nine?”
“We have a foursome,” another said.
“So what?” Jack said. “It’s not like there’s anybody out here pressing you.”
“Where are your clubs?” Another of the men asked.
“I’ll borrow from you guys.”
The men looked at each other.
“Come on, be sports. I won’t take too much of your money,” Jack said with the lopsided grin he’d used so successfully with the girls in high school.
“All right then, you can join us.”
“But,” said the guy, “You should know, we play for blood.”
The men smiled.
That’s when Jack noticed the fangs.