Dateline: Threadgill’s Branch Office. Under Farrah’s picture.
It Ain’t Easy to Be a Hooker in Alaska: How Reality TV Can Save Your Day
MysteryShrink is about what works and what doesn’t work–usually whatever therapy is covered by your insurance.
Thus, I must share a breakthrough treatment. And, nuuuuuu. No credit card, risk free trial, or six month sign-up required. I love the offer I just witnessed. The woman in the commercial asked those of us in her television audience “Are you a woman between the ages of 18 and 60 with aging skin?”
What? Maybe vampires between the ages of 18 and 60 don’t have aging skin.
Now the breakthrough way to start your day with a smile get out of bed. The move from lying between two warm pups and under soft comforters to standing and walking to the shower–may not pose a problem for those of you still coasting in the illusion that if you tire of your current job, you can always pick up a career as a trapeze artist, but the rest you will appreciate this amazing new method of taking on the day.
Set-up: So there I was. Unable to turn over, much less get up without excruciating pain. Convinced that this was the day I accepted life as an invalid. Just couldn’t do it anymore. I like to sleep in air no warmer than 65 degrees, so there’s the whole survive the cold business, but my special person was kind enough to drag his body from under his personal four down comforters and adjust the thermostat before he left. Otherwise, when he returned hours later, I’d still be in bed swearing that “No, I haven’t seen the movie Viva Zapata! Over ten times.”
My reluctance and lack of faith that I can get out of bed one more time, has to do with a combination of auto-immune disorders and the medications to treat them, laced with just the tiniest bit of aging. 
On this particular day, I’m about to give up when the episode of Drugs Inc.on the sixty-inch panel at the end of my bed switches to a scene in Fairbanks, Alaska. This scene stars a hooker walking up and down the sidewalk in the minus ten degrees morning trying to pick up “dates” to acquire cash for her daily supply of heroin. She needs five. She walks, she talks, and most shocking—she offers to get in some guys iced-covered vehicle and take off her clothes! Business is slow she tells us. She’s going to be out there a while. But, she’s committed. She will walk that sidewalk until she reaches her goal. She has a goal. She is committed.
That’s when I was able to turn over and settle my feet flat on the floor. The thought behind my courage is:
“If that woman can walk up and down the sidewalk in minus ten degrees, I can drag my rear out of this giant soft bed, cross the room, and stand in a hot shower until I can move my fingers.”
