CarrollBlog

A doctor I know described a certain type of patient behavior so common that it is known by a variety of names in the medical profession. He calls it "the hand on the doorknob." Very often a patient will come in with a specific complaint. After they're finished and about to leave, when their hand is literally on the doorknob to go, they casually say, "Oh yes, there's just one more thing. I have this lump in my armpit..." The doctor says that is invariably the real reason why the person made the appointment in the first place. But they are too nervous or afraid to admit it up front. Not till their hand is on the doorknob and it's their last chance do they confess to what is really worrying them.
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"I wish I'd had a camera" moment: Lined up directly in front of a very swank hotel in Vienna are five gleaming white toilets. A chaffeur leaning on the top of his big black BMW limo nearby is looking at them, as if they were the people he was hired to drive to the airport.
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A man has set up a stand on a busy sidewalk and is demonstrating the newest vegetable slicer. He's fast talking and his hands move with the speed and grace of a magician as he dices, slices, nices carrots, potatoes, tomatoes, whatever. The Carrot Magician. People who stop and "attend" these sidewalk salesmens' shows are a mixed but always recognizable bunch. There's the businessman who looks like he should be attending an important meeting right now instead of watching someone curlicue celery. For a little while he's chosen to play hookie from both the real world and his obligations. The group of raucous teenagers there for a laugh but in truth having no better place to go, the young mothers with baby carriages, the sprinkling of old people. All of them with apparently some time on their hands. Like the extra coins we give to beggars, these people can spare an extra few minutes to watch someone try hard to sell them something they don't want and probably never will.