"And, and you're sure you want a RAT'S tail. Not something, I don't know, fluffier, like a squirrel's, or shorter and more manageable, like a bear's?"
"Nah, doc, I don't need to start sheddin' fur offa somethin' shaggy. My shower drain hard enough to clean out as it is! And if I ain't gonna have plenty back there, then what's the point?"
"But, you realize a rodents do have a LOT back there, right? It might be a small tail technically, but so is the rat it's attached to. Everyone will ALWAYS notice your scaled-up equivalent. And most people don't find vermin or their features very appealing..."
Dale rolled his eyes. "Look, I know you're just makin' sure I'm sure. So were the nurses. But surely a 45 year old man knows what he wants. You don't think I just decided this one day on a whim, do you?"
The beleaguered professional sighed. "No, I suppose not. Lower your trousers in the back, and come here. Bend over a little." Dale did as he was told, and found himself standing in front of a tall, steel panel with cords sticking out a large electric in the middle. The doctor took something that looked like an IV and slid right it into the middle of Dale's lower back not far above where his tailbone was. Dale winced. What looked like an old pair of jumper cables got clamped onto each of Dale's butt cheeks, causing him to yelp. "Hold still!" ordered the doctor. Dale started wondering what he had gotten himself into, and how much this was going to hurt!
The doctor threw that large switch on the wall, and Dale instantly tensed, expecting the pain of electrocution. In fact, he only felt a slight tingle of energy running through him. But that energy was enough to make his spine feel funny, especially at the tip, just below where his drip was inserted. An intense but halfway pleasant stretching sensation began above ass crack. Dale relaxed and took deep breaths. He could feel a bit more weight forming, tugging gently on his hips and back, growing more solid. Dale began to moan. He soon felt it might be too heavy for his rump to hold up before the ground began taking whatever new weight was added. The chill of the cold tile shivered up his spine, and Dale knew his tail was hanging to the floor. How was it already long enough to do that?!
No matter. Dale, hunched over as he was, glanced between his knees and gazed in awe at what he owned now. It was bare and scaly, and it was dangling all the way down. He really wasn't prepared for how thick it was: not much thinner than an arm or a leg where it appeared from behind his torso, but tapering a toward the end of its length. What he was truly astonished to discover was that it was getting thicker, and the section that was resting gently on the floor kept stretching farther out behind him. Sure, he was expecting a final handful centimeters to possibly form down there, just enough to trail a little as he walked. But even that had seemed a tad unlikely. This, this was starting to get out of hand.
"Doctor, something's wrong! Why isn't it stopping?!"
"Buddy, rodent tails are at least as long as they are. I'll let you know when it's done."
Muscle and bone kept slithering out of Dale's spine--surely the doctor was noticing this?!--and he felt more and more of the floor behind him as his reach extended. Soon it was touching the wall! Dan's heart was racing, he was taking deep breaths. And he was feeling a firm, pulsing rush of blood through his rear appendage. Just what had he done? But even though the feeling of growth seemed to feel more and more intense, the actual speed of lengthening was on a decidedly downward trend. Just when Dale was starting to imagine he would just keep growing this tail forever, he finally noticed that he couldn't actually detect sensations any further behind himself than he had almost a minute earlier. The doctor looked up and down the results of the remodeling process and reached back over to the switch on the wall.
The tingling stopped. The needle and the clamps were gently removed. Dale felt free at last--from the medical equipment. He still felt rooted to the ground by what might as well have been an anchor behind him. But it wasn't to remain just dead weight behind him. A sudden spasm down his spine activated the powerful muscles in charge of it. It lurched to the right, knocking the doctor's legs and almost tripping the poor man up. Dale blushed and mumbled an apology. The long tail lurched to the left then, sliding across the floor and slapping them wall again. Still almost on all fours, and more than a little intimidated, Dale shifted his new tail's mass on purpose, watching it arc around his left-hand side and finally toward his front. The end of his appendage easily as far forward as his face! He took one pleading glance at the doctor as though asking permission, and then looked down at it again, eyes wide, and then reached out to touch it. He arched his back at the strange sensation. But he managed to get a good grip on it, stood back up, and hold his hefty new limb in front of his face.
"Are you sure this is normal?" he asked the doctor in a dazed. "It's your new normal," came the answer, "you'd better get used to it."