Dana was starting to get really concerned. Matt was looking older and older every few minutes and no one at the clinic seemed to be batting an eye.
"Matt, please, acknowledge the fact that you are over 40 now!" she begged. "You're getting so old! That's why you're coughing!"
"Dana of course I'm over 40," Matt said. "You know how old I am, you came to my birthday party this year."
"Right!" Dana said. "Your 25th birthday! You're a year older than me!"
"First of all, you're 29, and second, I'd kill to be 30 again, let alone 25," Matt said.
Dana was taken aback..and fled the room. She ran to the bathroom where Laurie had previously changed clothes. 29? Was she getting older too? She looked in the mirror and saw that maybe she looked a little different from this morning, but there's not much difference between 24 and 29. Maybe a few fainter lines around her mouth, maybe the bags under her eyes... she adjusted her full breasts, did the band of her bra feel tighter?
Joanne meanwhile entered the room Matt was in, struggling to get his too-small uniform back on.
"Sir, while we wait for your results, I think we have an issue with your paperwork we have to look into," Joanne said in a higher, clearer voice."
"Miss...don't take offense to this but... I'd like to see another doctor please," Matt said to the 27-year-old.
"What? But why?" Joanne asked. "Did I do something wrong?"
"It's just...I'd prefer an older doctor. Call me old fashioned," Matt said.
Flustered, Joanne pushed out of the room, past the middle-aged nurse who brought the paperwork issue to her attention. She tried to keep it together, but began tearing up. This was her first real job after finish medical school, the 26-year-old thought. She couldn't blow this!
Meanwhile, as 49-year-old Matt began to wheeze again, 45-year-old Laurie pushed her dull, greying blonde hair out of her face and sat down for a second...she needed a rest, she felt like she had been on her feet for 20 years.